Discover Movies

As stated in the opening titles and at the end Freakstars 3000 is supposed to be a commentary on the problems of the non-disabled people. The more I was shocked about how the disabled were depicted in this film the more I started to realize that in every non-disabled TV counterpart of this show (German TV shows like "Popstars" or "Friedmann" or the home shopping channels) its mentally "non-handicapped" participants are treated in a completely identical way: The total prostitution of the mind in front a huge TV audience at the expense of one's most important gifts one should hang on to: dignity. On the other hand one could completely understand people who are furious about "exploiting" these handicapped persons. But that's what Schlingensief's works are all about: shock people and don't care about those who cannot or will not try to get the message (if there is one).

Five stories, all taking place on New Year's Eve in Zurich, Switzerland.

"Serengeti Stories: The Work of Hugo van Lawick" follows the famed wildlife filmmaker and includes clips of his masterpiece, "People of the Forest," about chimpanzees and their social relationships. Also: clips of "Wild Dogs of Africa" (1972), a heroic story of survival.

Two girls who couldn't be more different. Alina loves horses and would love to have one of her own, but her mother can't afford it. For Jennifer, the daughter of rich parents, horses are just objects that are used and then put away. The stallion Silverado belongs to Jennifer, but only Alina gains his trust. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the means to buy him. To make matters worse, Jennifer falls in love with Alina's crush Patrick and her mother starts a new relationship after separating from Alina's father. But after a tournament, Alina is the winner in many respects and Jennifer is forced to realize bitterly that money and scheming games can buy neither love nor happiness...

Retraces the roots of the escapade of a group of Georgians in their twenties who hijacked an Aeroflot passenger plane on November 18, 1983 from Tbilisi.

Dr. Frick is head of the psychiatric ward of a clinic. He and his wife Anna have an eleven-year-old daughter who suffers from a hereditary disease. Anna finds it very difficult to cope with her child's illness. The fact that Frick only concentrates on the child in his free time also puts increasing strain on the marriage. Dr. Frick increasingly takes refuge in the meticulous fulfillment of his professional duties. Duty and morality are foreign words for the pompous Christoph: superficial and narcissistic, the event manager believes he is in the fast lane of life. His girlfriend Sarah suffers in the chaotic relationship and ends it. She soon meets the loving Ben.

A man and a woman meet in a bar. They walk through the night without any reason. At dawn they separate again. A long take.

1949 the early years of the Cold War. Albert Schweitzer has become one of the most admired men in the world. The "jungle doctor" Albert Schweitzer tells the story of a philosopher and physician who promoted peace during the Cold War, built a hospital in what is now Gabon and proved stronger than the CIA.

There is Franz, suing the company that has made him redundant after 40 years. Then, for nine months, he holds out in an empty office with nothing to do. There is Stephan who, for eight days and nights, sits on a chair that is part of a giant billboard. Selling yourself is sometimes the quickest way to pay your debts. There is Saskia, the high school graduate, learning how to put together the perfect application. There is Gunnar who is being taught that perceiving your own body as trademark is the key to success. Franz finally wins his lawsuit only to realise he has lost all the same. DEVIL HIDES IN DOUBT is a film about the emotional push and pull of work, its demands and absurdities, and the struggle for fulfilment.

Waitress Doris meets a stranger on a train to Leipzig. This well-dressed thirty-something man decides to follow her, as they are drawn to each other, but neither seem prepared to admit to their loneliness.

The "Schwitzkasten" is a sleazy sauna located in a undistinguished neighborhood in Berlin, Germany where several persons are used to meet day by day, discussing their personal problems and feelings.

Young Tim leads an easy life - spoiled by his eccentric mother and his older, well-to-do boyfriend. Then, one day, he meets Bosi, a straight, low-level criminal thug, and falls in lust with him. Thus begins and impossible and potentially dangerous affair on the hard streets of Germany.

In poetic images, "Blindlings" tells a tale of broken trust and the false prejudices that arise when love is lost. Max "kidnaps" his ex-girlfriend Eva, to take her to a romantic mountain cottage, where he hopes to finally talk things out. They never get there. After their car breaks down in a snowbound forest, Max leaves to find the cottage on foot. Unprepared for a trip into the wild, Eva stays in the car. He had vowed to get help, but Max loses his way in the forest. In the clutch of the blistering cold, the border between memory and reality begins to blur. When Boris, an old hermit appears on the scene, they are both unsure if he will bring salvation - or death.

Thriller about an accident victim with amnesia who may have been working as a hitman for his rescuer... After an accident, nurse Noah frees a stranger from his car. He steals the man's wallet, finds a room card inside, and drives to the hotel in the hope of finding more loot, where, to his amazement, he discovers a photo of himself and a gun. Noah feverishly searches for reasons why the man might have been targeting him. The stranger is of little help: since the accident, he can't remember anything.

Two sixteen-year-old boys, Marcos and Johannes, spend their days racing, wrestling, hanging out, watching videos and playing hide-and-seek at nights. A closeness develops between the two of them, which soon starts to become a calamity to their friendship.

It's mom's birthday and her three daughters want to throw a big party. But everything turns out differently. It's not just because the divorced dad arrives a few days early and brings his much-too-young new girlfriend with him, or because the birthday girl has to stage the end of the world with her village theater group.

Olaf is to take care of the family's cleaner's store, while his dad is away on a fair. In the evening he runs into three Brazilian ladies thrown out of a limousine not knowing where to go. Olaf invites them to stay with him and his deaf pot-smoking grandfather, which at first just causes some confusion as he soon is to marry his girlfriend Vera. The next day it's topsy-turvy all over.

Four lives that could not be more different and a single passion that unites them: the unconditional love for their cinemas, somewhere at the end of the world. Comrades in Dreams brings together six cinema makers from North Korea, America, India and Africa and follows their efforts to make their audiences dream every night.

Icke wants a wife, not a Russian bride, but one who is always there for him and who will sometimes make him a fried chicken. But Icke is illiterate, a secret he keeps well. In his last hope, he calls a crisis counseling service. When he hears the voice of the crisis advisor, the tide turns.

This melodrama about love in the third age focuses on the 65-year-old Mathilde living alone after the death of her husband. When she gets to know the attractive Carlo in the opera, she sleeps with him at the same evening. Mathilde tries to call him up some days later, but learns he gave her a wrong number. Despite this disappointing experience, she gets to know the sympathetic Hannes. They become a couple, but after a while, Mathilde meets Carlo, who apologizes and admits being married to a dead sick woman, again...

Well into the future, a senior interplanetary investigator, 3V3, sends a distress signal. Ginger, a tough and ravishing stellar investigator takes the assignment and follows the signal to a planet where a nasty villain, Zidian, is brewing and exporting an addictive drug called "toad." It's also he who has captured 3V3. Ginger recruits four tough female bounty hunters. We learn more about 3V3's identity and Ginger's skills at entrapment. Plus, there's Ray, a bartender who has a history with Ginger. Can the five women find and rescue 3V3, foil Zidian's plans, and escape with their lives?

A reporter has only one purpose after the death of his daughter: find the fugitive driver responsible for the accident.

The Weidemann have a perfume factory but the business goes bad and blindly trust Marie, a young woman with a gift for the fragrances, to launch a new essence that will save the company. But Marie falls in love with Bernard, the heir of the family that owns the bank continually denied that the appropriations to the Weidemann.

A talk with Alexander Kluge and Jean-Luc Godard.

A strange green cloud has turned almost the entire human race into stone. The only survivors are eight children, their intrepid teacher Birnenstiel and his friend, a jolly millionaire, who by chance all happen to be in an airship above the green cloud at the time. Against this background Birnenstiel tells a bizarre adventure story in which he and the children are heroes. With loving and pointed irony he confronts his protagonists with deep-frozen beauty queens, gene-manipulated tomatoes, extraterrestrial maniacs, aggressive goldfish and last but not least the rampant mechanics of an abandoned civilisation which claims its victims one by one. When the narrator goes too far, the children take the story into their own hands...

2 years have passed since the terrible events in the exitus house. Sophie, the sister of the dead monique, suffers from the fact that the body of her sister has never been found. Together with her friend Lena, she makes her own research and discovers a terrible secret in the former murder house!.

Lynn is a cheerful 22-year-old who works at a cafe and lives with her brother. Though she has no real direction in life, she is happy. Conversely, her boyfriend, David, is a career-driven swimmer who seems to care only about his training. Then Lynn meets Japanese exchange student Koji, and, though they speak different languages and spend most of their time together in silence, the two soon become closer than she and David had ever been.

After 15 years in the USA, a woman in her mid-30s returns to Germany to reconcile with her father, who had broken off contact with her. Before the discussion can take place, the father is murdered. In the course of the investigation, long suppressed secrets come to light.

Eberswalde, dying industrial city of forty thousand souls just 50 miles East Berlin. Johanna lives in that hopeless place. She lives refusing herself the dreams of following in the footsteps of her father, a boxer. Her irascible character makes her lose job after job and training in the gym where women are nothing but a nuisance. She perseveres supported by the love of a wonderful boy and the intelligence of a woman who knows that beautiful women are not necessarily stupid.

Based on the life of German toymaker Margarete Steiff, the movie shows her long way from a 10-year-old girl, confined to a wheelchair, to one of the first and most successful creators of toy stuffed animals.

After a painful divorce, fashion designer Christina Tolliver quits her job and moves to Dorset. Her new neighbor, the charming forest manager Stephen McDowell, helps Christina move in. Juliet jealously watches as the two grow closer. Stephen was briefly involved with Juliet, the wife of his critically ill employer, Jonathan Pierce. When he finds out about their affair, a momentous argument ensues.

Oliver has had an unsuccessful career in West Germany and returns to his East German home village. He now wants to sell the house where his mother died alone. His childhood friend Ronny helps him clean up the mess. But he can't admit his personal and professional failure to him either.

A hot-shot journalist is swept up in a movement to challenge Apartheid in 1950s South Africa.

Franziska does not understand where Tom is. During their trip together, he disappears without a trace.

German musician Alexander Hacke explores Istanbul's rich music culture and attempts to create a portrait of Turkey through music genres. On this journey, he encounters a mosaic that covers countless genres from rock to arabesque, electronic to hip-hop.

Karl, son of a poor tailor, conquers the daughter of the village tyrant.

A documentary directed by Christopher Buchholz and Sandra Hacker.

Stevie, a precocious 14-year-old girl must cope with the instabilities of her immoderate parents. When they decide to move to a small provincial town in Germany, Stevie attempts to slip into a normal life. Whilst her parents playfully escape their responsibilities, Stevie tries to make a good impression in town, spreading stories of grandeur and claiming to be the daughter of a diplomat. She makes progress. Yet the good weather doesn’t last and before long, she discovers that her parents have once more resorted to illegal means, as a way of supporting their leisurely lifestyle. As friends and hangers-on of her parents fill their new home, the chaos continually mounts. It is in this atmosphere of physical and emotional destruction, that Stevie must now start to define herself and perhaps even break free.

Stories of the Berlin city life, separated into five episodes. A hopeless impostor. An East German couple who dreams of the big money. Three Turkish teenagers who do everything to have sex. Two hapless Satanists. And gay boys who dream of a better world.

About a man who suffers hell on earth after accidentally hitting his girlfriend. Richard, actor in a daily soap opera, wants to brighten up his crisis-prone girlfriend Katja and organizes a birthday party. After the guests had left, he wants to sleep with her, but she doesn't want to. When Katja playfully repulses his advances, Richard inadvertently knocks her unconscious.

Olga is a russian girl working as a prostitute in Germany, but one day - as she wishes - she’ll head towards Tirana for a better life...

The daily confrontation with the darkest abysses of the human soul has turned war reporter Paul Holland into an incorrigible cynic. Only one thing keeps him going: his love for his girlfriend Sybille. When she suddenly disappears without a trace one day, everything points to a kidnapping - but there doesn't seem to be a motive. Desperate, Paul goes in search of his beloved. Because he just doesn't want to and can't believe that Sybille is possibly dead.

Think of a really nice person, a friend of yours, someone who could never hurt a fly. Imagine finding out that he is supposed to have killed someone. You're told that he has shot a person in a bar, for no obvious reason. He has already confessed. He says the murder was planned. He expects a life sentence. He even longs for it. He wants to pay for his crime. The psychiatrist cannot see any mental illness. People around him don't think him to be evil. They like him. They want to help him and protect him from himself. And they all ask the same question: Why....?

Thirteen-year-old Julia leaves Berlin, where she resides with her father, to spend vacation in the Czech Republic. While there she experiences first love, and also tries to help the local kids rescue a circus bear from a rich German hunter who's willing to pay for a bit of sport. If the parents get their way they'll use Mr. Big Game to finance the circus and even contribute to local pensions. The children and the bear head for the forest.

Dominik Graf relocates the story of the same name by Henry James from the 19th century to the year 2001.

Based on a short story by Elke Heidenreich, this TV movie focuses on a couple's silver wedding party and the revelation of some bitter, long hidden secrets. Alma and Ben invite their best friends to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, but what was meant to be a happy reunion leads to heated discussions and furious accusations...

No Eastern cliché fits the small village of Wrodow in the state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern, about which Rosa von Praunheim filmed a documentary in the fall of 1999. No bitterness, no unemployment and no right-wing radicals, but instead 60 people full of joie de vivre and warmth. The people of Wrodow are proud of their castle, which was bought 6 years ago by a youth judge, his wife and the painter Sylvester Anthony from the West. It is the venue for opera balls, Venetian masked balls, modern exhibitions and concerts.