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Nina and Mark wish for years in vain a child. An adoption is out of the question for them, they would like to have their "own" child. There seems to be only one solution left for her: a surrogate mother in India. A business model that specific physicians and clinics specialize in the field. Euphorically, Nina and Mark travel to their foreign country. Everything seems perfect at first, the doctor Kamalika acts competent and in the young Shanti they quickly find the right surrogate mother for their desired baby. But in the nine months to the birth they begin to wonder if the decision was right.

Symphonic Odysseys: Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu was a symphonic tribute concert held in Cologne, Germany on July 9, 2011 at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall. The concert exclusively paid homage to the work of Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu and featured music selected from his works as a video game music composer. Among the games featured were Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Last Story, King's Knight, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Legend, and selected works from the Final Fantasy series. The concert was produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composer and musician Jonne Valtonen, along with Roger Wanamo, Masashi Hamauzu, and Jani Laaksonen. The concert was performed by the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln and the WDR Radio Choir Cologne under conduction from Arnie Roth, with guest performers Benyamin Nuss and Juraj Cizmarovic joining the orchestra. A video recording of Symphonic Odysseys was streamed live online.

A boy is setting the table. He places a plate with a picture of a tiger on the table. The tiger comes alive and jumps off the plate and starts to eat the boy's food and drink his juice.

A poetic examination of the impermanence of rolling clouds, of droplets on a window, and reflections on large bodies of water in the ever-shifting cycle of precipitation.

After the death of her father Georg Inga Hauck drives together with her son Max in their home village. In her old home she meets Anna Kertesz. Inga's parents had taken Anna 28 years ago after her adult brother Zoltan mysteriously disappeared. Since the same day also Ingas was missing then six-year-old brother Magnus. Inga is being overtaken by her past in her parents' house. Soon her nerves are bare. And every day her memories come back.

Do you know how to turn ordinary water into a billion-dollar business? In Switzerland there's a company which has developed the art to perfection - Nestlé. This company dominates the global business in bottled water. Swiss journalist Res Gehringer has investigated this money-making phenomena. Nestlé refused to cooperate, on the pretext that it was "the wrong film at the wrong time". So Gehringer went on a journey of exploration, researching the story in the USA, Nigeria and Pakistan. His journey into the world of bottled water reveals the schemes and strategies of the most powerful food and beverage company on our planet.

Inspired by the famous woodblock print of Hokusai "Tako to ama", where two octopuses sleep with a girl. This kind of sensual terror is also a fatal attraction.

Where should one go to do things which are forbidden? Some place where it’s dark.

Franco on Trial is the new film by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios. After the success of Franco's Settlers, their first encounter with Franco's dictatorship, they are now setting their sights on one of the darkest chapters of European history: the presumed organized extermination that took place during the coup, the war, and the subsequent dictatorship led by Franco, as well as Argentina's current effort, by invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction, to prosecute Francoists accused of committing crimes against humanity. The film is also a sore reminder of an issue that still stands today: the clear-cut accountability held by Germany, Italy, and Portugal. The film accomplishes to give both sides a voice - those against whom the killing has been directed; and the side of the perpetrators.

Matthias and Nelly live in a village in the Bavarian Alpine foothills. The couple could not be more different. When Matthias discovers a bog body in the lake, everything changes.

"A Postcard from Pyongyang" is a journey into a deeply enigmatic and completely isolated country that keeps the world in suspense: North Korea. Friends Gregor Möller, Philip Kist and Anne Lewald visit in 2013 and 2017 and do what is strictly forbidden and for which they might have ended up in a forced labor camp: even though accompanied by state watchers, they secretly film their travels, accompanied by state watchdogs. We get an extraordinary insight into one of the most closed societies in the world and experience the 'beautiful new world' as the state propaganda machinery displays it.

A criminal cab driver is looking for the culprit behind the death of his little brother and meets the head doctor treating him. When he gets into a cab drunk two years after the loss of his patient, he has no idea of the family drama that will soon develop into a thriller.

After an exciting summer as a vacation worker in a hotel, life tends to run more normally. Tom continues to tinker with his inventions, Anna is training to be a photographer and Liv is eager but willful to pursue a career as an actress. But one day, a strangely dressed girl named Sandra shows up at Tom's door. It quickly turns out that the girl in the pink petticoat has traveled to the present with the time machine from Hotel 13. However, her appearance changes the past and with it the present and future. Tom, Anna and Liv must travel back in time with Sandra to keep the world from falling apart. Not only is Sandra's future with the movie star David at stake, but also the friendship of Tom, Anna and Liv.

After separating from Lisa, Jiri has to fight not to lose his son Victor. In his desperation, he has no choice but to kidnap him and sells the escape to him as an adventure trip based on a jointly invented story about two little animals on their way to the magical land of Padulim. Victor goes along, but wishes his mother was there.

In the face of death you can really sense life. There are people who share their lives with the dead and some literally with corpses. A trip from Argentina to Manila, Cairo and Sulawesi.

The film is set in a modern day 'Berlin Republic' liberated from all irrelevancies. It's about artistic production, the creative industries and above all film and cinema - a political manifesto in feature film format. It centres on Asta, tough, hardened by theory and immaculately styled right down to the emblems on her leather jacket, with current art scene jargon flowing elegantly from her lips.

Set in a factory in Asia during an undefined celebration event, Europeans in suits are seen in long wandering shots as they greet one another, shake hands discreetly, and look about themselves expectantly. Further into this ambiguous opening, and propelled by classical Western opera and symphonic orchestrations, Asian workers are observed putting finishing touches of paint and polish onto gleaming surfaces of what will soon be on display in motorbike showrooms. The images and music are sharply punctuated by the abrupt and raw intrusions of live factory sounds that conclude in a jarring visual exclamation, exhuming the verses of an Emily Dickinson poem and laying them out in a contemporary and globalized context.

A German TV drama

When the seriousness of life begins for us, we are given an empty backpack, which we will gradually fill with our story. We mistakenly refer to this as "our life." But it is merely our life story and is often closer to suffering than to life in the true sense of the word. We are only too happy to identify with this sad story. Not because it's so beautiful or fun, but because others do it too, and it makes us feel less alone. We leave the disturbed self behind and disappear into the "we." This is how we find protection and security in the collective madness. We will explore this unbearableness in the second part of my lecture trilogy. It cannot be ruled out that we will once again encounter our evolutionary companion, the Neanderthals. They were ahead of us in many ways: They had time. We only have the clock...and it hasn't been ticking properly for a long time.

A mysterious suicide on the Pink Granite Coast may be linked to an unsolved mystery.

What does the respective age mean for the individual, which topics are currently playing an important role and what are the expectations for the future? The two filmmakers Nancy Camaldo and Veronika Hafner show over 100 people between the ages of 0 and 100 in their everyday lives and also let some of them have their say. From the differences between the protagonists and their living situation, the impression of a complete life is formed, a closed circle of life from birth to death.

A director starts making a film about his grandfather. Or maybe not.

Cold times, people are looking for a place to sleep. A car rambles through the night, to bring out of the dark, what could get lost in there. The film tries to grasp the perception of people who are constantly on the run, who can't remember the last time they've slept in a real bed. The things we witness are turning into inner landscapes. Fragments of conversations become collective thoughts and somewhere in the distance, Kepler 452b is orbiting a sun that is warmer than ours.

A young boy finds himself in a dilemma of choosing between social peer pressures or making a moralistic decision.

"Great, Chinese!" is the first exuberant reaction of Brian, Lisa and Michael Brücker's son, when the Chinese Wang family move into the house next door. But the very next morning, the Brückers realize that they have underestimated their new neighbors. The immigrants from the Far East turn out to be real high-flyers. The Wangs' offspring outperform the Brückers' offspring at school, father Wang snatches the coveted managing director position from under Michael Brücker's nose and mother Li is a university professor, while Lisa "only" has a small, poorly run flower store. Logically, the Brückers find so much perfectionism unbearable in the long run and prepare to strike back...

An operator controls a game on his computer that turns out to be a military weapon. He must decide whether to keep playing or not.

Thief: Someday You Will Pay

Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is both a cultural icon and a lasting source of artistic inspiration. His famous female figures, like Venus and Primavera, have become part of our shared visual memory and influence artists worldwide. Berlin director and art historian Grit Lederer explores Botticelli’s life and work, focusing on the Gemäldegalerie’s impressive collection. The film examines how his iconic paintings continue to inspire art and advertising today. Experts reveal what makes his style unique and why his work was forgotten for centuries after his death. Contemporary artists such as French artist Orlan and American Michael Joaquin Grey present works inspired by Botticelli. The documentary traces Botticelli’s enduring impact from Florence through Paris and New York to Berlin.

The sharks are the predators of the seas, they are ruthless, bloodthirsty and they do not stop at anyone, not even humans! But is that really true? Are sharks really the cruel creatures that we have come to know? And if they're not, what are the misconceptions we have about them? What would be the consequences of their extinction? And how did the misguided opinion that we have about this species even emerge? "Sharks 3D" gets to the bottom of this, with the help of the internationally recognized expert on sharks, Erich Ritter, and with numerous excursions under water in search of the true nature of the so called beast of the seas. This underwater journey delivers unexpected insights on these cartilaginous fish that will fundamentally change the opinion that you have about sharks.

The passion to tinker with historical military technology in your own garage is not only great in the USA. Meanwhile, the trend has also arrived in Germany. The technical performance behind the historical relics fascinates the insiders of the scene. From the Military Technology Festival Finowfurt to the practice lesson in the Panzerfahrschule: The N24 reportage gives insights into the world of military technology fans, into their hobbyists’ rooms and their collector’s showcases. (Text: WORLD)

Sometimes, we are like marionettes in the hands of those whom we have either consciously or unconsciously chosen to please. A visual adaptation of the poem “Love in the Age of EU” by Björn Kuhligk.

Fifty kilometers from Berlin, there was once a secret Nazi labor camp, but today there is no trace of it. The witness of those events, three restorers and two diggers are invited to go in search of this place. Comparing the prisoners ' diaries with the findings suggests that the culture of memory is gradually losing its power.

Germany, as seen from the water. The landscape passes by in epic tranquillity as the audience immerses itself in the world of barge shipping. The top permitted speed for smaller watercraft is specified in the inland waterways regulations as a maximum of 15 km/h. A woman is along for the ride on Germany’s rivers and canals, with plenty of time to explore this little-known cosmos. In the end, the director dreams of a life on board and endeavours to find her place in the predominantly male domain. Welt an Bord is a hybrid of documentary and narrative film. The basic conditions are set by the limited space on the barge and the work that must be done. Kathrin Resetarits embodies the alter ego of director Eva Könnemann, while she herself takes charge of the cinematography. Together they accepted the captain’s invitation to join in this other life. What kind of life is it anyway? Resetarits/Könnemann listen and work their way through fiction and reality.

″Haymatloz″ tells the stories of five German Jewish academics who emigrated to Turkey in the 1930s, to be welcomed with open arms. After 1933 a considerable number of German intellectuals emigrated to Turkey at the invitation of Atatürk and went on to definitively shape teaching and instruction in Turkish universities. Turkish-born filmmaker Önsöz accompanies the descendants of these German exiles and sheds light on a memorable piece of history whose meaning is still felt to this day, as these renowned Germans played a substantial role in the Europeanization of Turkey.

Seven short episodes, each containing one sole image, are combined together in order to create a psychological thriller. ”I’m walking. There’s somebody else walking in front of me. This has been going on for a while. At some point it might get unpleasant – it might seem as if I’m following him…”

A mysterious natural phenomenon sets an end to the party night of a group of young adults. The morning after begins with far more than just a hangover.

The Grandmother wants to teach her Grandson how to hunt the big, bad wolf. But when the grandson finds himself facing the wolf on his own, it appears that the wolf just wants to talk. Not at all what is Grandmother prepared him for.

A stubborn, atmospheric and brutal view of the great love between father and daughter.

A dream where obsession for German as a second language mixes up with an obsession for neatness and cleanliness as a distinctive feature of the national culture in question seen from the perspective of a foreigner. The dream is not a nightmare only because the set it is dreamt into is the seashore of the mare nostrum, where the dreaming subject is perfectly at home. A homeland which she, in turn, in her more secret thus naïf dreams would dream of being cleaner and tidier as in the reality, especially in front of such beauty of nature. As is right and proper.

3-D printing is raising immense hopes in many fields, whether in the aeronautical, space or medical industry. Nicolas, amputated of his right hand, goes to the Fab Lab in Berlin to print at reasonible cost, the prosthesis with 5 articulated fingers he needs.