Discoveries from Germany World Cinema

Anja became a millionaire! This wife and mother won million euros on lottery and she decides for a smart investment. First step - getting her husband Uli off the couch. She hires a lawyer, who's in love with her, to buy an abandoned restaurant and employ Uli, a talented chef, giving him a second chance. Things go out of control when restaurant becomes very popular

A man and a woman both took a "baby year". When their paths cross, the offspring and the respective partner lose importance.

Klaus is a young man in post-war Berlin. He is drawn to his friend Manfred and, under the encouragement of their acquaintance, Dr. Winkler, explore the underground world of gay clubs and electronic music. His family begins to learn of his other life and do everything they can to set him straight.

Due to a delayed flight, a group of German flight passengers had to wait in the hall of the airport of Manila. The crowd was quite mixed, ranging from a cultivated eastern German teacher couple up to sleazy sex tourists. As the waiting prolonged, more and more aggressions and long-repressed behaviors shed their way to the surface.

It takes time for Lukas to understand who the little boy in his room is. When Lukas listens to him one day, a journey into his inner world of memories begins. A man whom Lukas had long tried to forget is waiting in a deep cellar... Sometimes you have to face your dark memories. Otherwise they become so powerful that they destroy everything you are. Not least what you love.

He is considered to be one of the greatest German film stars, Hans Albers, known as "Der blonde Hans", a man made for the cinema. He was an actor, singer, idol of the Germans - and darling of the Nazis. Nevertheless, he could not protect his great love, the Jewess Hansi Burg. In 1938 she had to flee to London from anti-Semitism in Germany. But Albers himself stayed in Germany and continued to film, driven by a desire for a career and the call of money. In 1946, one year after the end of the Second World War, they meet again: Hansi Burg returns to the land of the murderers of her parents in the uniform of the British Army and visits Hans Albers in his villa on Lake Starnberg. He lives there with another woman. The rival has to go, then there is a tense debate. For a day and a night, the blonde Hans has to face uncomfortable questions and even more uncomfortable truths.

A look at the world of US writer Paul Auster, on the occasion of the publication of his new novel, an exploration of human identity and the soul of New York, the city that Auster has portrayed as no one else has ever done.

The movie depicts the events from July until September of 1914 which led to the defeat of the German troops at the Marne. While Sebastian Haffner explains and comments on operations and decisions on the basis of situation maps, key scenes are depicted by actors. A main focus is thereby placed by Haffner onto the controversial mission of lieutenant-colonel Richard Hentsch who is said to have, during a war patrol to the various army high commands, contributed to the abortion of the operations significantly.

In 2016, DEFA celebrates its 70th anniversary: the film embarks on a journey into the exciting film history of the GDR. In a comprehensive kaleidoscope, the importance of DEFA productions is illuminated, the relevance of the films as propaganda productions for the GDR, which socio-political themes were in the foreground, but also which heroes DEFA brought to the screen and celebrated as people from the people.

Jürgen Stoll is not only a Filou and life artist, but the darling of many women. When the marriage swindler is given the choice, prison in the GDR or a career as "Romeo" in the FRG, he decides to go to the West. Stoll now plays in the big game of secret agents until he realizes that the Stasi still has very different plans with him.

Three loosely connected stories: The relationship between midwife Rosa and therapist Marcel is shaken to the core by a cancer diagnosis. Wandering aimlessly through life, waitress Motte is horrified to discover she’s pregnant – by her best friend Neo, who’s not even sure about his sexual orientation. Finally, cleaning lady Layla refuses to accept that her ex, Navid, has left her for a younger woman. Each situation escalates on one fateful night: A gun is fired, a woman dies, and a child is born. ‘Without you’ – an expression that can be formulated both negatively and positively: ‘I can’t live without you’ also means ‘life is much better with you’. Director Alexandre Powelz maximises this interpretation to its fullest potential. OHNE DICH is a film both about love and its bitter ingredients, and the equally sobering, yet comforting certainty that life goes on.

Michael and Suzie are an engaged couple taking their honeymoon off the coast of Spain. Their reservations are lost and Michael loses their luggage and money to a scam artist promising to get them a room. Suzie berates him and Michael, disenchanted with his nagging wife-to-be, gives in to the temptations that are all around them. He falls in with a free-wheeling motorcycle gang. Eventually his lover leaves him (Hemingway-style) for a bullfighter, and he and Suzie, having found their wild and independent spirit on the island, come back together.

A noble family that fled Silesia during World War II sets out to build a new life in the Bavarian Forest, but their efforts are threatened by the heir’s worldly ambitions—until he comes to realize his true calling and finds his true love.

When Anna Maron follows her brutal husband after a violent argument, she catches him with his mistress to make matters worse. Completely distraught, Anna drives off and promptly has an accident with hitman Alex Lee, who takes her hostage in order to have a better chance of escaping from the police and the Chinese mafia. Anna's ordeal begins with surprising twists and turns.

Kerstin is in great pain. Her daughter Juliane wants to help her die, but the law forbids it. Jessica Krummacher’s second feature describes the most important of events via tiny details that stay with us and get under our skin.

In East Berlin in the late 70s, two boys meet one evening in a disco: Thomas, who is from a working class family and is doing an apprenticeship, and Michael, a 16-year-old school pupil from an educated middle-class family. They both miss the tram home and walk together instead, ending up at Michael’s house where they discuss God and the world into the early hours. Following this encounter the two boys enter into an unusual friendship, united by their mutual desire to get away from the phoniness, the limitations and the restrictions of their parents and of society.

A life of little Maria who lives in a foster family breaks after a sudden appearance of her mother Melanie who was absent for five years...

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

Kai Wodar is the son of a German-Yugoslav couple in Vienna. His father works as Milan coach in professional football and has at the time in Austria a commitment. But Kai, the name his friends Fips, his mother can hardly know, they killed in a traffic accident. For several years he brings to a boarding school before his father, now married to the Yugoslav Gordana, brings him back to himself. For Fips begin restless years; Milan Wodar constantly changes clubs.

Single mother and trauma surgeon Christiane juggles work, her teenage daughter Jette, and a secret affair with younger colleague Lars. When her meddling mother Luise arrives unannounced and moves in, chaos erupts. Luise takes over the household and Christiane’s love life, while Jette secretly signs her mom up on a dating site to help her find love.

A story about massive robbery from the safe of German railways set in 1946.

Based on a novel by Bernard Schlink (The Reader), The Weekend follows Jens as he leaves prison 18 years after being arrested as an RAF terrorist in Germany. Back with his family, friends, and ex-comrades, including his former lover Inga, Jens’ unexpected arrival disrupts their lives, forcing them to re-examine the violent idealism of their youth, especially as he insists on learning who had betrayed him to the police years before in this intense, gripping drama

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...

A man is sitting in a padded cell. He remembers how he got there. Munich in the run-up to Christmas: The loner roams the city, has abnormal ideas when looking at the most harmless things and wants to turn his perverse fantasies into reality. To do this, he chooses an old man whom he happens to see in a shop. He perfectly plans a perfidious, cruel murder.

Thomas Schütte's work is always about people. His works have gravity and lightness, but they also show damage, power relations, fears, dependencies, evil, weird and beautiful figures. Schütte studied from 1973 to 1981 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Fritz Schwegler and Gerhard Richter. Today, he is one of the most important contemporary artists and is represented in all major museums and collections worldwide.

An encounter between a young nurse and her patient of the same age, Frida, on the border of professional distance and the desire for closeness.

An adaption of E.T.A. Hoffmanns classic tale of horror!

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

Robby and Jim are two friends working in a circus. When Marina, a new acrobat, enters the show, both men will compete for her love. She needs a partner for a flying number, and one of them will be elected. Then accidents will happen.

Star photographer Mike Hansen doesn't just want to shoot glamour photos. On Mallorca, he thinks he's on the trail of a criminal gang who is selling girls

Ex-boxer Kalle is supposed to collect money from widowed mother-of-three Anne. At first he plays the tough guy. When he realizes that she won't be intimidated, his good heart wins out: Kalle lends a hand so that her plan to turn her farm into a guesthouse and pay off the debts with money from the tourism promotion scheme works out. Anne's children are thrilled - and she also takes a liking to the strong man. Mayor Jungbluth, however, torpedoes the plan...

A young student stands to inherent a fortune provided he can pass his first semester of college and find a steady girlfriend. His scheming stepfather has other plans for the money, however.

Samuela despairs of her lack of breakthrough as an author. When she is abandoned by her boyfriend, she secretly travels with her brother to the family holiday home in Lanzarote, where she wants to work on her novel. But instead of the peace she hoped for, she finds her father there, who occupies the house after the divorce. When her mother also shows up, the chaos is perfect.

Mina, a poor girl with a big heart sees stars falling from the sky and turning into Gold Talers before they land. With that money the girl can ask the king to let her parents go home.

Sophie Haas and her team are forced to state everything they know about the committed crime in the nearby village.

David flies from Tel Aviv to Munich to study. Through a gay friend he meets Thea, the older quirky landlady of a gay pub. He becomes friends with Thea. She recognizes through a ring David wears that he is her grandson.

Nicole Wagner finds out by chance that her son cannot be the son she once fathered with the scaffolder Grille. Nine years ago there was a mix-up with an infant named Sebastian, the son of the academic couple Callenberg, who live at the other end of Freiburg in very different circumstances to Nicole and Grille in their middle-class environment. Grille is inquisitive about the unknown son, unlike Nicole, who is very upset, as are Sven and Britta Callenberg. But what can be done? The children are anchored in their families, they are loved and nobody wants to make them unhappy. The parents reserve the right to leave everything as it is. But their thoughts about their biological son do not subside...

Interview film with German director Werner Herzog revisiting the films he made up to ca. 1977.

A fictionalized account about the lurid lives of a group of eccentric cabaret artists who have come from America to Berlin looking for social acceptance and a place to give full reign to their creative nature.

August 1st in Zurich. An unbearably hot day. While many are celebrating the Swiss national holiday, five individual fates take their course: 1. As a symbol against capitalism in Switzerland, Vinc is planning an attack in the city centre. 2. Tibetan descendent Sonam is struggling to settle into her new job as a police officer – worse still, she makes a major mistake during her first operation. 3. Hunter Edi’s status quo is unbalanced when a financial predicament puts his morals to the test. 4. Young Ukrainian Sonja arrives in Zurich full of hope to surprise the love of her life – but she is in for an even bigger surprise. 5. Chilean Javier no longer feels at home in Switzerland and decides to return – with his daughter, but without her mother’s knowledge – to his motherland.

After the death of his wife, the veterinarian Sebastian Brunnen and his daughter Kira move from Berlin to a small Moselle town to try a new beginning there. Barely arrived, he is confronted with a dramatic case: Because Sebastian has been diagnosed with the pathogen of a dangerous disease in a broodmare on the equestrian farm of Katherina Mohr, the responsible medical officer will also take precaution to euthanize the healthy horses of the farm. While the two get closer to each other privately, Sebastian realizes almost too late how lonely and unhappy his daughter is.

Klaus Kinski is one of the few German actors who has achieved international fame. He made headlines. And disappeared behind them. Kinski lived his parts 24/7. This film tells the story of a man who no longer could understand the difference or distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Trees talk, know family ties and care for their young? Is this too fantastic to be true? German forester Peter Wohlleben and scientist Suzanne Simard have been observing and investigating the communication between trees over decades. And their findings are most astounding.

The door has been closed for many weeks. A teenager has locked himself in - shutting out a helpless father, mother and sister. In Japan, youths like him have already been given a name: Hikikomori (the secluded). The phenomenon is also beginning to spread throughout the Western world. This is all the family has been able to find out. All they can do is stand in front of the locked door and ask, beg, implore, throw tantrums, despair, accuse, ignore and hope. All the while, the door increasingly becomes a mirror of their own lives.

Georgia Gale was a great poet, but then she stopped writing and started drinking heavily. Now, as a desperate last resort, she has traveled to Switzerland, where she hopes to find a cure.

Herzog's documentary of the Wodaabe people of the Sahara/Sahel region. Particular attention is given to the tribe's spectacular courtship rituals and 'beauty pageants', where eligible young men strive to outshine each other and attract mates by means of lavish makeup, posturing and facial movements.

Music manager Eric quits his job and decides to become a mortician of all things

Criminal psychologist Cathrin Blake is confronted with a very personal case: Superintendent Sean Kelly, with whom Cathrin is also friends, has to deal with his family history when his nephew Eoin comes to Ireland from his native Australia.