Discoveries from Germany World Cinema

10-year-old Lucy is basically too good for this world. She is well-behaved, kind and perfect in every situation. Her best friend Rima and she herself want to make the world a little better with every little action. But then disaster threatens: Lucy’s parents run an ice cream parlor, and when the expensive ice cream machine breaks down, the parlor is threatened with closure. Lucy wants to prevent this at all costs. However, after much deliberation, she sees only one way to get money quickly: a bank robbery. To prepare for her big coup, she makes a deal with the class gangster Tristan. Under the code name “Operation Lucyfer”, he is supposed to teach her how to be mean and ruthless. So Lucy gets tutored in stealing, lying, cheating and blackmailing – and proves to be an amazingly docile student. Lucy barely recognizes herself. Her transformation from nerd to crook, however, causes many problems.

Frank, a man without a criminal record, attacks a money transporter and then turns himself in to the police. His behavior is a mystery. In prison he meets the unscrupulous and suspicious Arab Fuad, who is protected by his clan. To get closer to Fuad, Frank intervenes in the drug business within the walls and gets caught between the two rival groups of German and Arab inmates. It is only the prison guard Susanna with whom Frank will be able to build a relationship of trust, not knowing that she is part of Fuad’s business and has a sexual relationship with him. However, they come emotionally close. What only Frank knows is that his wife and his daughter died in a car accident. Fuad was the hit-and-run driver that remained unpunished. Frank seeks revenge.

By chance Paul Kromberger discovers on the internet a photograph of the US opera diva Caterina Fabiani who is the spitting image of Evelyn, his dead wife. His unease and growing sense of alarm are transferred to his daughter, Sophie. Filled with curiosity, she leaves Germany and journeys across the Atlantic to make contact with this stranger.

A minute-by-minute chronology of the Romanian revolution in December 1989 in Bucharest. This cinematic montage of live footage from the state television company TVR and video taken by numerous amateurs becomes a new media-based form of historiography.

Young Johanna dares to make a fresh start: she buys a run-down house in a small village on the former German-German border and starts her job in the local daycare center. With her charming manner, she quickly dispels the mistrust of most of the long-established residents. But some of the residents soon realize that Johanna has not moved to their village by chance: she is on the trail of a story from the pre-reunification era that many would rather keep in the dark...

Not Rome, Paris or Florence - the 11c class trip goes to the “spectacular” Sauerland. Nessie, the class representative, is to blame for this; she chose the desolate destination. It's clear that something like this doesn't go without consequences: As soon as he arrives at the country school, the newcomer Erik reveals the secret about Nessie's "full" breasts in front of the entire team. The receipt comes promptly: Nessie gives him a bloody nose and starts a campaign of revenge with her friend Tobi...

Three soldiers on very short home leave visit Berlin. One isn't from there and runs around with his guide book being perplexed by all the things that are different now. Another visits his wife and his baby. The third enters a romance due to a mistaken identity.

Anka, a student active in the extra-parliamentary opposition, has had enough of inconsequential discussions. As she no longer believes that she can change the world with words alone, she plans a militant action: as a protest against the Vietnam War, she plants a bomb in a Cologne department store to force the public into a debate.

In 1957 Gustaf Gründgens staged a new production of Goethe's Faust in which he once again played Mephisto, a part he had played since 1932. The brilliant production was a huge success and ran for a couple of years. In 1959 Peter Gorski captured the performance on film in his directorial film debut. Basically it is a registration of the production, but Gorksi did manage to accentuate the details of the acting by using enough medium and close-up shots which give a view on the acting you normally would not able to see in a theater.

From 1945 to 1989, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany, two rival ideologies, communism and capitalism, faced each other in a merciless battle. On one side of the Iron Curtain and on the other, throughout the Cold War, the USSR and the United States sought to shape children’s imaginations through their magazines and films. Never in the history of mankind have so many comic books been published and so many cartoons produced for young people. In November 1989, communism collapsed with the Berlin Wall; capitalism was left to decide the future of the world. What if this victory had been prepared for a long time, and our thinking conditioned, from our early childhood, to ensure this absolute triumph?

A high-stakes assignment for rookie police officer Katherin Schmidt. Her boss sends her undercover as Julia Hollander’s assistant at her agency after two clients are murdered. There, she uncovers a complex web of intrigue in which Julia’s mother plays a pivotal role…

When Conny died at the age of only 47, his son Stephan was just 13 years old. Twenty-five years later, together with co-director Reto Caduff, he went in search of the man he often only experienced behind the mixing desk as a child. At the same time it became the search for the artistic legacy of his father.

A young journalist researches the life of his father which leads him to path of contradictions until he uncovers a gruelling truth.

Paolo Sanseviero is a professor at a German university and more married to his profession than to his wife. Martina decides to leave her husband. But it happens differently.

Autumn 1941. The Soviet army flees Kyiv, chaos reigns, soldiers attempt to trade their uniforms for civilian clothes in order to escape unnoticed. The war and pending capture of Kyiv by the Germans is the only topic of discussion. Everyone has heard of the horrible things that have happened in other areas, where Jews were brutally and inhumanely murdered. Indecision and despair spread like wildfire among the population. As the German army marches in, fear and horror take over.

In the second part of this magnificent concert celebrating music from across Europe, Lukas Sternath, Martha Argerich, Bruce Liu and Hayato Sumino perform the finest piano concertos by Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

His opponents accused him of being homosexual. The male favorites he gathered around him during his short life gave those malevolent enemies solid arguments to do so. He would not have failed if he had proved himself to be an energetic king. But Edward II of England (1284-1327) never was a king like Edward I Longshanks, his father, or Edward III, his son, were. And his end is shrouded in myth and mystery.

"All Quiet On The Western Front" made the Osnabrück native world-famous in 1929. In 1930, Hollywood made a film of the novel, the Nazis defamed it as "treason against soldiers", Remarque had to flee to Switzerland...

Simon falls head over heels in love with pretty and quick-witted Verena. When his father, who suffers from schizophrenia, has a relapse, Simon devotes himself completely to his mother and little sister and endangers his budding romance. Maneuvering himself into a near-fatal situation, Simon realizes that he cannot change the others' lives, but only his own.

Europe in 1793. For years, England and France have been at war with each other. Now, France sends three men to the British colony of Jamaica to organize a slave revolt. The envoys are Debuisson, the grandson of a Jamaican rum manufacturer, who knows the island very well, his old friend Sasportas, and the sailor Galloudec. After having established contact with the fragmented rebel groups, they receive the surprising news of Napoleon′s takeover in France. Whereas Debuisson, who by now has gotten used to his role as a rich heir, wants to wait for new instructions from home, his companions are determined to press ahead with the revolt. When a slave kills a British guard, the situation escalates.

Copywriter Lorenz is gay and has a relationship with his boss Adrian. The two are happy together until Lorenz meets secretary Nina one day. Nina has just been abandoned by her husband Kai, who is now with a man. Lorenz also suddenly develops new, unknown feelings. He falls in love with Nina, a woman. Of course, he does everything he can to keep that from Adrian. But that does not hide Lorenz's emotional chaos.

The Berlin Observatory is facing the financial end. Against the will of the renowned physicist Robert von Reichenbach, the astrologer Lena Moosbach is set, which quickly establishes itself as a crowd puller and fills the empty cash registers of the planetarium. Worried about the scientific reputation of the observatory, Robert spat first poison and bile against the new colleague. But although the sober astronomer rejects horoscopes with the deepest conviction, he falls in love with the charming astrologer. However, when it turns out that she just feigned her Ph.D., Robert feels betrayed

A couple of friends aspiring to join film land get mixed up in a robbery, ordered by a mafia boss who wants to seize the evidence he needs to blackmail an American politician.

It is winter and a snowman comes alive. On his adventure he will find a calendar that will make him wish to know the spring.

Wajan, the son of Nudonk, a witch, is beset with difficulties. His mother is in ill favor with the Balinese natives who want to get rid of her, and the hand of Sari, a native chieftain's daughter, will not be his until this is accomplished. How he manages to save his mother and also win Sari is unfolded in the film.

Set in a Medieval town, the film has a theatrical quality, as the behaviours and actions of the characters are exaggerated almost to the point of satire. Nevertheless, its relatively dark and heavy plot yields over-the-top expressions from the actors. There is little dialogue as the story opens: a mother is seen tending to her sick daughter, whom she is then told must be sacrificed to the forest. The viewers patiently but curiously watch the mother perform healing rituals with objects like egg shells, dried plants and twigs–also recurring in the installation–until the daughter mysteriously disappears.

Hitler's biography told like never before. Besides brief historical localizations by a narrator, only contemporaries and Hitler himself speak: no interviews, no reenactment, no illustrative graphics and no technical gadgets. The testimonies from diaries, letters, speeches and autobiographies are assembled with new, often unpublished archive material. Hitler's life and work are thus reflected in a unique way in interaction with the image of the society in the years 1889 to 1945.

A heart warming comedy about a grumpy old man, who is confronted with a group of migrant workers and has to challenge his prejudices.

In the 18th century, the Barbary threat became serious. In July 1785, two American boats were returned to Algiers; In the winter of 1793, eleven American ships, their crews in chains, were in the hands of the dey of Algiers. To ensure the freedom of movement of its commercial fleet, the United States was obliged to conclude treaties with the main Barbary states, paying considerable sums of money as a guarantee of non-aggression. With Morocco, treaty of 1786, 30,000 dollars; Tripoli, November 4, 1796, $56,000; Tunis, August 1797, 107,000 dollars. But the most expensive and the most humiliating was with the dey of Algiers, on September 5, 1795, “treaty of peace and friendship” which cost nearly a million dollars (including 525,000 in ransom for freed American slaves). , with an obligation to pay 20,000 dollars upon the arrival of each new consul and 17,000 dollars in annual gifts to senior Algerian officials...

Lawyers Paula Dennstein and Therese Schwarz open a law firm together. But their first case is already a tough one. They have to protect a single widower from the fraudulent machinations of a prefabricated house company - pro bono, of course! But things are also going haywire in their private lives. While Paula's marriage threatens to collapse for good, Therese meets Thomas and is completely smitten by him. The attraction is obviously mutual, until Therese realizes who Thomas really is.

The storyline of this episodic film, made on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), is a PR team's train journey through Austria. The professionals are to use the inspiring surroundings to develop a new advertising concept for ÖBB. Various stories are embedded, in each of which the railroad naturally plays a leading role.

While on vacation with her friend Evi, the attractive Anna meets the charming horse breeder Carlos Sanchez on Mallorca. Although she is happily married to the busy lawyer Frank Glaser, Anna allows herself to be carried away by a night of love with Carlos. Back in Munich, Anna is tormented by a guilty conscience. Before she can confess her infidelity to her husband, Carlos turns up unexpectedly at the Glasers' house. While Anna tries to persuade the enamored “Latin lover” to leave, Frank discovers his wife's infidelity and goes completely mad with jealousy ...

A brand new production of ‘’Tannhäuser’’ at the Staatsoper Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has already staged Purcell and Berlioz, Dusapin, Rihm and Hosokawa. Now Sasha Waltz brings to the stage a grand romantic Wagner’s opera with a star cast of some of today best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

Arne and his younger brother Malte run the scrapyard they inherited from their parents on the outskirts of Hamburg and live a rather disoriented existence. One day, Malte finds an abandoned baby. He immediately takes the little one to his heart and wants to look after the child until he finds the birth mother. His brother Arne doesn't like the idea at all, but Malte wants to go through with the plan and even threatens to sell his brother the scrapyard. Disgruntled, Arne finally agrees and, as Malte is fully occupied with caring for the baby, sets off on a laborious search for the raven mother.

The 55-year-old chief secretary Ina loses her long-standing job and has to reorient herself.

A comedy directed by Vivian Naefe.

Centers on a group of weary Middle Eastern refugees who have made their way to Turkey to apply for European visas.

40-year Maria is living in a monotonous and deadlocked marriage with her husband. In addition, she has to take care of her ill despotic father. One day, she falls in love with her sensitive neighbour Dieter. But her attempt to leave her gloomy everyday life behind leads straight into tragedy.

For ten years Lena Drömer has been traveling to Tuscany alone for four weeks every November - at least that's what her husband, the Protestant pastor Hermann, and her daughter believe. But this time it will be a journey without return. Shortly after her departure Lena is killed in a bus accident near Bremen. Her death gives up Hermann Rätsel. Why did she die in the north, when she wanted to go to the south? When, as every year in November, a postcard from Lena arrives from Italy, Hermann sets off in search of the truth.

An average, everyday metalworker and volunteer firefighter content in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart finds his emotions unexpectedly stirred when he falls for a pretty waitress from a nearby town.

Shock on the night of love: Instead of the tender hand of his neighbor Maren Wenning, the married suburban Casanova Rudi Sterzenbach suddenly feels the bloody hand of a murder victim on his face in the dark cellar. The man lying there with his skull smashed in is the speculative shark Armin Teller. Ironically, also wrapped in the banner of a citizens' initiative against the gentrification of the quarter. An initiative in which they are both active.

Bavarian allotment tyrant Gerti has had enough. Her once sweet little granddaughter Merci has turned into a pubescent monster. Now Merci is also falling in love with Berlin hipster beau Simon, of all people, who has recently started chilling out in the garden next door. Gerti now fights the troublemaker in her allotment garden colony with all means at her disposal.

1523. The Protestant theologian Thomas Müntzer is entrusted with the pastorate by the 'Allstedt Council'. On the one hand, he is to open people's minds and hearts to more freedom, and on the other, he is to serve as an ally against the count.

Helen's life is a chain of misfortune: She loses her job, she fails her final exams at university, and then she is dumped by her husband Jan on their wedding day - he moves in with his new girlfriend Jeanette. Her mother Ruth and her friend Olga try to cheer her up - but then Jan has a fatal accident...

A portrait of Alexei Navalny (1976), the staunchest opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, severely poisoned in 2020, arrested in 2021 and died on February 16, 2024 in a Siberian prison camp under unclear circumstances.

Gundula Bundschuh longs for a peaceful vacation under the sun of Mallorca. However, her mother-in-law's decision to invite the entire whimsical family thwarts her plans.

Cathrin Blake's neighbor Coner O'Neill is found dead. While Superintendent Sean Kelly assumes a natural death - Coner was over 80 - Cathrin is skeptical, as Coner had shown no signs of frailty so far. At the same time, another male body is found, also over 80. It turns out that both men had contact with the exclusive care home "Eden View". Bridget Howard is a very likeable, warm-hearted woman who is devoted to caring for elderly people without families. Kelly is taken in by the older lady's charm, but Cathrin is suspicious of appearances. Then there is another death at Eden View, and Kelly comes across several unsolved missing persons cases - also linked to Bridget's retirement home. Bridget has plausible explanations for all the incidents, but could it all just be a chain of unfortunate circumstances?

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Christian Martin Luther followed his calling and became an Augustinian monk in Erfurt. However, his life in the monastery confronted him with his fears of a judging God. These were finally taken away from him through the study of his religion, which emphasized a merciful Creator. As a theologian in Wittenberg, he then went public with his 95 theses, which criticized the church's practice of forgiving sins in exchange for money. A momentous dispute began.

Documentary about Federico Fellini