Discoveries from Germany World Cinema

After a long prison term, a free man wanders into a new reality.

Experiences and problems of an air squadron: Commander Milan has reached the age limit for pilots and must come to terms with the fact that he will have to give up flying from now on. Lieutenant Lenz loses control of the plane during a flight and is seriously injured during the parachute rescue, in the worst case scenario he remains paralyzed. He doesn't want to tie his girlfriend Anka to him, but she sticks by him. Young Kullas comes into the squadron to replace Lenz. His predecessor's accident makes him afraid and he tries to find out what courage means to him. Lieutenant Herzog loves the teacher Sigrid. She returns his love, but it is difficult for her to choose a "hero" once again. Two years earlier, her husband was killed defusing a bomb. But Herzog does not want to give up his job. The fifth, Captain Wendland, is a party secretary. He takes flying just as seriously as his concern for his comrades.

To get one over on her husband, molecular biologist Leo Kaminski, Lydia Kaminski-Smith sets about cultivating bacteria that decompose waste and thus solve the garbage problem. Some insatiable microbes turn paper into sugar. Once released, nothing is safe from them - not books, letters or files. Everything turns to sugar. The sweet catastrophe progresses inexorably...

A boarding game comes alive and drags a family into its world

"He was attractive, cultivated, very sensitive, very empathetic". Lawyer Astrid Wagner's first impression when meeting the serial killer Jack Unterweger. As a young law student she had close contact with him: "It was a nice feeling to be needed." On June 28, 1994 Unterweger is convicted for the murder of nine prostitutes. Six hours later, he hangs himself in his cell. Twenty years later, Thema unrolls the incredible story of the woman murderer and asks former friends and other companions how Jack Unterweger influenced their lives.

Following the Battle of Jena in 1806 as the French armies commanded by Napoleon overrun Prussia, a small detachment of Prussian troops take up position in a windmill and resolve fight to the last man to hold them off for as long as possible. Meanwhile, the windmill owner's daughter chooses to stay and fight alongside them.

Maggie (21) and Klaus (45) are touring in Germany in a camper and they seem to be lovers despite their age difference. However, at a camping site Maggie shows some affection for another man. The unavoidable conflict escalates fatally.

The film is set in post-war Germany. It tells the story of widow Rosemarie Hermann, who flees Silesia with her sister Bettina, her father, and their two children Maria and Johannes ("Jojo"). In the general chaos, she loses her daughter. In her attempt to find her, she finally receives support from Harald Bergmann, who works for the tracing service of the German Red Cross and also finds her a job there. Maria initially lives in a children's home near Lübeck and is then placed with a foster family.

Drama about a former couple who met again 55 years after word war II.

A satirical journey through 30 years of post-war West German history, from 1957 to 1987, focusing on the divergent paths of two school friends, Ulli and Willi. Ulli immerses himself in the counterculture movements of the 1960s and 1970s, while Willi pursues a conventional political career.

With The World of Hans Zimmer - A New Dimension, the music of the Oscar winner conquers the big screen. This concert in Krakow displays the entire spectrum of Hans Zimmer's work and allows the audience to experience his film music with overwhelming intensity. At this concert in Krakow, Zimmer himself is on stage for only one evening of the tour, which has just won the Opus Klassik "Tour of the Year" Award. The orchestra invites the audience into Hans Zimmer's world - a world of unforgettable soundscapes that have made cinematic history. New arrangements of his masterpieces from Dune: Part Two, The Lion King, Gladiator, Interstellar, and many other hit movies are staged in an energetic, visually stunning setting.

A privileged millennial struggles to be a good member of society. Greta Thunberg is watching and so is an old white man, commenting on her every move. A matter of life and death!

A breathless criminal hunt, which leads into the remote mountain world of Romania, with the portrait of a foreign country, which has remained standing in time. Hanna Landauer and Sven Schröder are part of a special unit of the LKA, which traps fugitives across the borders to the remotest corners of the world.

Also known as Darling of the Gods, this was Emil Jannings' second talkie appearance. Jannings stars as famed operatic singer Albert Winkelmann, who is greeted with cheers, applause and romantic propositions whenever he performs in his native Vienna. But when he embarks on a tour of South America, tragedy strikes. The sweltering climate causes Winkelmann to lose his voice on stage, a disaster met with hoots and cat-calls. Dispirited he returns to Europe, where he soon learns that no one is aware of what happened in South America. Intending to retire so as not to be exposed to further humiliation, Winkelmann is goaded back on stage -- where, miraculously, his gorgeous voice returns.

The story of two boys coming from different social backgrounds: the sensitive loner Joschi who had to move with his father from a better district after his parents’ separation, and Niko, full of bravado, whose family came to Germany from Kazakhstan, staying out of the way of his drunken father. In the neighborhood cinema, the two friends secretly idolize the figure of a vampire up on the screen. In a magical twist, Count Karpatovicz steps out of the screen to help the boys realize Niko’s sister Tatjana’s dream of escaping from the confines of the rundown tenement to become a boxing champion.

Karin, who is in her mid-thirties, works as registrar but has been divorced for several years. Together with her 16-year old daughter Nora, she leads a happy and independent life. Then, she finds a new partner in the mathematician Peter, but does not tell her daughter about him. When Peter proposes marriage, Karin always comes up with new excuses why such a step is still too early for her. She mainly fears that Nora would not be able to cope with another marriage of her mother. But when Peter cannot be dissuaded anymore by her excuses and finally wants to marry her, Karin comes up with a bizarre plan.

When an unsuspecting student inserts a blood drenched alientampon and mutates into a murdering monster, a group of students unite their forces in order to confront her with weapons and courage.

Atze, Lutz and Sulli have no work. Day after day, they idle away their time in a backyard. Atze has been fired from his job as a skilled worker at the hut, Lutz has just completed his apprenticeship and has not been taken on by his company, Sulli, who is Greek, is a foreigner and won't get an apprenticeship anyway. The neighbors are suspicious, their former colleagues mock them, doing nothing is boring and the three of them are fed up with it all. Atze, Lutz and Sulli steal a fully loaded furniture van and drive off. A short test drive turns into an adventure, an escape from reality, a piece of borrowed freedom. But those who run away are followed. The neighbors have always known about it, the police are on the lookout and the overzealous set out to catch the outsiders...

Suffocating memories dominate the mind of a young woman living alone on a houseboat. Ruled by her own fantasies, she lingers to the sound of old cassette tapes and smoldering cigarettes, while visions drive her deeper into the trauma and guilt that threaten to burn her.

Maria, Helga and Kiki were best friends in their youth. Now there has been radio silence between them for many years. One day, the ladies meet by chance and it is the first step into a new life.

Alex returns to his unloved home of Stresund, a dying village on the coast. There he takes on an almost impossible task. He wants to find partners for the local hard-to-place bachelors. To do this, he first has to teach the men how to flirt. However, Sebastian's behavior is not exactly selfless. Sebastian's childhood sweetheart Marie still lives in the village.

Experience a mystical journey through nature performed by a movement artist. Felix faces the whirling challenges of his inner turbulence with an emotionally charged dynamic, delicate strength, graceful dignity, as well as ecstatic devotion. Behold the fire dancer in the night.

Katharina, a young lawyer from rural Kleinpenning, has made it big in Munich by her own efforts. Only her relationship life can be optimized, because the attractive single woman has the highest standards: even in this cosmopolitan city, only twelve candidates are suitable - purely statistically speaking! And none of them have been on the carefully selected online dates. The possibility of meeting Mr. Right in her home town and by chance would never occur to the woman from Munich. When Katharina has to look after her mother Johanna after a fall at home, she hires Mike to renovate her parents' house to make it suitable for senior citizens. The fact that her mother immediately takes a liking to the good-looking master carpenter as a potential son-in-law is actually already an exclusion criterion for Katharina.

A young father has been left by his wife, and has to go on military service with his baby.

Lothar von Pütz and Roswitha von Krakow fall in love and only then discover that their fathers are bitter enemies. When Lothar's father dies, a close friend of his father's, Baron Maximilian von Hanckel, takes the boy under his wing and tries to make peace between the families. He visits Roswitha's father, who begins to hope that he can marry his daughter to the older, but wealthy, baron, who is still a bachelor. When an argument breaks out between Lothar and Roswitha, she agrees to marry Maximilian. It is only at the pre-wedding party that Roswitha and Lothar have a real conversation. Maximilian overhears everything, releases Roswitha from her vows, and brings the two young people together.

After a period of separation, Sarah visits her research scientist mother on a remote New Zealand island. Before long Sarah becomes inextricably involved in events involving both Maori legend and an Albatross.

At a conference in Verona, the dutiful German family man falls under the spell of the Italian Elsa. As soon as he falls for her, she disappears without a trace. Leo wife Hannah remorsefully confesses the affair. She forgives him. Then suddenly Elsa appears.

Nixi has a vivid imagination and she makes extensive use of it. After parting from her longtime fiancée after an argument, she tells her father, that she’s pregnant --- and by another man: the police prefect Roland von Gabriel, whom she met after an auto accident. Called in by her father to be lectured, Roland doesn’t seem to mind the idea of marrying Nixi, but she’s already taken to her heels and fled.

1936: Fahnrich Peter serves on a torpedo boat. Peter loves Carmita, the pretty sister of a fellow seaman. But then his superior officer falls in love with her, too, who offers to marry Carmita and who accepts. Disappointed, Peter's relationship to his superior turns sour, but eventually improves after recognition of his heroic behaviour handling a fire on board his ship. Later on, his unit is sent off to fight in Spain against the Reds. In those same waters, Carmita and her father are taken prisoner by the Communists when they commandeer their cruise ship. Peter's commander receives the order not to take action against the Spanish communist pirates, but Peter and his buddies take it upon themselves to take the situation in hand. However, Peter and his buddies find themselves prisoners of the Commies, too and now his superior must decide what to do about it.

In a desperate bid to regain his fortune, the impoverished Elector of the Palatinate does everything in his power to arrange a marriage between his eldest daughter, Liselotte, and a wealthy nobleman—but to no avail, for with her tomboyish manner, the young woman sends all her suitors running for the hills.

To mark the artist Fernando Botero's 75th birthday, Peter Schamoni made a documentary film about his moving life. Fernando Botero is immediately recognizable by his colourful and exuberant works. Schamoni convinces us that, behind the cliché of the naïve, Fernando Botero is an artist who also devotes himself to serious and profound themes. Schamoni not only accompanies Botero to Tuscany, where he creates his sculptures, and to his Parisian painter's studio. The film also takes us on a journey to Colombia, where Schamoni lets the viewer take part in the world in which the artist lives and works, in the highs and lows of his life.

The oceans seem to be the Nehls' second home. But there is one exception that Grandpa Nehl, alias Martin XI, captain of a training sailing ship, is not at all happy with. His son Martin XII is the first of the family to work ashore. A scandal, really, but Grandpa Nehl doesn't give up. He hopes that his grandson Martin XIII will carry on the maritime tradition. But behind his grandfather's back, he also goes his own way. And so a huge row is brewing, if it weren't for twin sister Martina.

Peter Helling, the only survivor of a polar expedition, returns once more to the eternal ice. Why he calls his fate out again, what has happened? At that time he had set out with his best friend Svensson, to search for the missing friend of the woman they both love and for which they fought. In desperation, the men drag through the deep snow and the icy Arctic storms.

Combining archival footage with dramatized episodes based on real accounts, this film examines everyday life in Nazi Germany through the experiences of ordinary citizens. Directed by Eberhard Itzenplitz and Erwin Leiser, it traces how conformity, opportunism, fear, and routine compromise drew “ordinary” men and women into complicity with the regime, revealing the banality of evil at work in daily life.

Extreme life-and-death situations that happen every day around the world, captured by journalists and amateur videographers with great courage and nerves of steel.

A dead girl, a suspicious suspect, a lost family, a dark secret. Two policemen and a young mother in search of the truth.

In 1938 Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler sponsored an expedition to Tibet lead by several Nazi SS scientists to study the regions flora and fauna, and to take scientific measurements of the Earths magnetic fields. The expedition was also sent to find traces of the orgins of the "Aryan" race in Tibet which was where Himmler thought evidence of could be found. This film is a Nazi era documentary of that expedition.

Tino is a real Don Juan and he knows it. No woman can resist his charm including the fiancée of his brother. Right before the wedding he seduces her. Tino decides to seek professional help and joins a group for sex addiction treatment. For his surprise the ex of his brother is also there. Once the members have achieved their common goal - 90 days without sex, they realize that their problem does not actually consists of frequent sexual intercourse, but lack of love, acceptance and true friendship.

Hage, the Holy Spirit, is writing a musical, when Jesus returns to earth at Christmas to prepare the apocalypse. To prevent this, Hage tries to convince him that mankind is worth saving with the help of a beautiful striptease dancer.

He is considered one of the most important athletes in football history. Franz Beckenbauer was the shining light of German football, won everything there was to win in club football as a player and coach, became world champion as a player and coach and, as the father of the "Summer Fairy Tale", brought the 2006 World Cup to Germany. He was also a pioneering advertising icon and an occasional singer and actor. The man whom everyone in his home country simply calls “Kaiser” shaped the image of the Federal Republic of Germany like no one else. The legendary footballer seems like a national treasure today, but little is known about the person behind the ball artist. Public knowledge of his private life is shaped by his long-term relationships with four women. The documentary, completed shortly before his death, uses archive material and prominent contemporary witnesses from sports, politics and entertainment to weave both facets into a look at a life's work with light and shadow.

Film version of the operetta by Emmerich Kalman. Victor has won 10 000 Mark with his ceiling painting. In the local pub, he celebrates his triumph. Countess Alexandra happens to drop into the pub too, and is thought to be a model by the sponsor of the prize, Count Meredith. Victor soon has to save her from an embarassing misunderstanding. The two men insult each other and Victor loses his prize.

The British Embassy in a communist Eastern Bloc country: This is where diplomat Chris Caulker and his wife Iris live. In the middle of breakfast, the poet Bozidar bursts in; he has managed to take refuge on the embassy grounds and is asking for asylum.

An adaptation of the Gerhart Hauptmann play of the same name. A young farmer's daughter is used and abused by the men in her life.

Every year, rich people and celebrities gather for the race week in Baden-Baden - and with them the most valuable jewelry and the finest diamonds. This comes in handy for philanderer Konni. His extravagant wife Franziska has a lover and wants to divorce him. Too bad for Konni, as he only married her for her millions! So he comes up with a plan to relieve the rich and beautiful of their fortunes during a party thrown by the Consul von Düren, whose wife Babette he himself is having an affair with. With the help of his former prison brothers Georg and Boris, he plans an ingenious coup...

The hero steals the haul from the thieves, gives it back to the police but charges 10% for his services.

Auguste is an aging prostitute who falls in love with Felix, a younger student. While Felix has strayed away from his parents, Auguste starts taking care of him and spends her life savings into a cake shop to move further away from prostitution, but trouble comes when another woman enters the picture.

Winter 1968. Historian Dr. Dallow is released from prison. He is still trying to cope with and understand why he was put behind bars for 21 months for defamation of the state. His supposed "crime:" for five minutes he accompanied a cabaret chanson on the piano. The film shows what "ordinary socialism" was like, letting the audience feel the threat under which the people in the GDR had to live over many years.

Life could be wonderful for Livia and Marco: good-looking, young, and Tim's parents. Tim is nine months old. His screaming every night drives his parents around the bend, although he was supposed to cement their relationship. But instead of slumber and sex, it's the same every night: jump out of bed and into the wobbly old Golf whose engine sound is the only thing that calms Tim down. One night, the unbelievable happens…

After a long journey with new brown bear friend Lea, Lars finds his parents have become ill. While fetching medicine, Lars crosses the snow line for the first time and learns about the forest. With his parents cured, it’s time to relax until Yuri, the funny Puffin, drops in unable to fly. It’s up to Lars and his chillin’ chums to help Yuri head back to the skies where he belongs!

During a stopover in Buenos Aires on her way to Chile, 31-year-old Maria recognizes a nursery rhyme. Maria doesn't speak a work of Spanish, but without understanding what she is singing, she remembers the Spanish lyrics. Disturbed and thrown off course, she decides to interrupt her journey and wander through the unfamiliar city.

Turmoil in the Cuckoo's Nest: The killer Brutus has left his cabin in the woods to free his held sister - a child of the forest. His path to the psychiatric ward is paved with corpses. Disturbing news for an auto mechanic also imprisoned there. After escaping the heel of her sadistic grandmother, she was enslaved by a sleazy millionaire - with bloody consequences. Now she and her lover are at the mercy of the pseudo-educational methods of the asylum staff. Could the blood trail of the murderous Brutus mean a path to freedom?

The children Sonja and Helmut Schmitt have lost their parents in a car accident. At first, their grandmother takes over the supervision and care of the two. When she no longer can take care of that due to her health, mayor and brewery operator Gassner provides them a new home. By doing this, he secures respect and approval in the village. What really happened isn’t suspected by anyone: The egocentric Gassner let his underage daughter drive his deregistered, medium-green old Mercedes. During that ride without a license, she caused the accident and forced her father to do an outwardly “good deed”. Because, if the truth came to light, Gassner would have to fear a defeat in the upcoming mayoral elections and damage to his reputation.