Anishoara is a 15-year old girl living with her grandfather and little brother in a small village among the rolling green hills of Moldova. Her life is marked by the quotidian rhythms of country life; in summer she feels the overwhelming sensation of first love when on a trip with friends to the melon harvest. In autumn a strange German tourist disrupts her otherwise calm existence. In winter she travels for the first time to the sea alongside the young man with whom she fell in love. In spring she longs for her lover's return, but when that moment comes it's not what she expected.
Maik, a fourteen-year-old teenager, sets out on a road trip during summertime with Tschick, a new classmate, in a stolen car. The two share life changing experiences during the eventful journey.
In the Georgian riverside town of Kutaisi, summertime romance and World Cup fever are in the air. After a pair of chance encounters, pharmacist Lisa and soccer player Giorgi find their plans for a date undone when they both awaken magically transformed with no way to recognize each other.
In order to finally get that long-awaited promotion, Heinz Hellmich, an old white man, has to show his "wokest" side at work. When he invites his superiors to a private dinner at his home, his family's politically correct façade quickly begins to crumble and the evening takes a hair-raising turn.
In 1914 on a family estate, Oda helps a wounded anarchist, and as their illicit friendship deepens, a family turmoil erupts as the war closes in.
In 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that Zeisig is a man named Hansen, Hitler's personal astrologer. But Zeisig quickly realizes that he's gone from the frying pan into the fire. In the Hotel Lux he meets his friends Frida and later Meyer again, still passionate communists. For the three idealists an adventure between love and death begins to run his course.
A married couple retreats to a luxury, high-tech, fully automated house on a remote island. The house AI system goes rogue and turns against them.
A film inspired by one of Germany's most visited blogs. The author of the site www.notesofberlin.com, Joab Nist, posts pictures of real announcements, notes, information that people leave in the streets of Berlin. The film follows 15 genuine notes and protagonists. The result is 15 funny, tragic, fascinating episodes about people and the city they live in. Twenty-four hours from the life of the city. The story begins with a note attached to a street lamp, with the message “For one minute please just stand here in silence, look at the sky and contemplate how amazing life is”. Is it possible that only a very drunk young man notices the text and looks upwards? An extraordinary mood picture of present-day Berlin and a declaration of love for the city.
The last years of Heinrich George's life are reconstructed with documentary footage and play scenes. His son Götz, named after Heinrich's favorite role of the peasant war hero from Goethe's play "Götz von Berlichingen", plays scenes from his father's life and allows his enormous creative power to shine through. Nothing is left out, nothing glossed over in this story of a man with many facets. Götz George, one of Germany's best-known actors, is at the center of this homage, which is also a reappraisal of the contradictions in his father's life. As the only follower from the acting profession, Heinrich George had to pay with his life. He was not officially rehabilitated until 1998.
A hijacker threatens to bring down a passenger plane to a crowded football stadium. Fighter pilot Lars Koch decides to shoot down the machine. The court of Berlin should decide whether Lars Koch is a hero or a murderer. The viewers become jurors, and their decision determines the outcome of the film.
Axel and Karla are an ill-matched couple in a borderline situation. The two meet in the hospital. Axel is keeping watch at his son′s bedside and Karla is waiting for some sign of life from her sister. None of the doctors can tell them whether the young couple will come out of their comas after their serious accident. As the weeks of uncertainty, fear and tedium pass by, a peculiar relationship develops between Axel and Karla, sustaining both of them.
Frank and Simone have fulfilled a dream and live with their two children in a row house in the suburbs. They are a happy couple, until the day Frank is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The family is suddenly confronted with death.
Vivi is exhausted. Actually, she is about to become an attorney and to move in together with her boyfriend Adam, but somehow, she is stuck. She tries to flee back to her Moms couch, only to find that there is no more space for her. Vivi's father assumes that she needs some rest and sends her to an island...
Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.
A wicked witch locked Rapunzel in a tall tower without doors. Whenever she wanted to enter, the witch would call, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair", and Rapunzel would lower her extremely long hair for the witch to climb. Years pass until one day a prince, riding through the forest, heard her beautiful singing and was captivated.
Marusya is 16 and, like many Russian teenagers, is determined to end her life. Then she meets her soulmate in another millennial, Kimi. They spend a decade filming the euphoria and anxiety, the happiness and misery of their youth, muzzled by a violent and autocratic regime in the midst of a “depressed Russia”. This film is a cry from the heart, a tribute to an entire silenced generation.
In 1916, the officer of the German secret service Elsbeth Schragmüller trains the end-of-career exotic dancer Mata Hari as secret agent. Schragmüller has finally an ear directly in the influential circles of Paris, while Mata Hari can uphold her mundane life despite lack of engagements. Both have great hope for this intelligence mission.
A portrait of Berlin’s most famous bouncers – Sven Marquardt, Frank Künster and Smiley Baldwin. The three men have been part and parcel of the capital’s club scene for more than 25 years – from the days after the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present day – but aren’t yet considering calling it a day even though life makes more demands on them as they turn 50.
In her desperate longing for sympathy and understanding, a single mother tries to get back in touch with her grown-up son, who locked himself up in his room since two years. She doesn't sense that she runs the risk of loosing him forever.
"If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?" CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE offers six startling responses. This 3D film project about the soul of buildings allows six iconic and very different buildings to speak for themselves, examining human life from the unblinking perspective of a manmade structure. Six acclaimed filmmakers bring their own visual style and artistic approach to the project. Buildings, they show us, are material manifestations of human thought and action: the Berlin Philharmonic, an icon of modernity; the National Library of Russia, a kingdom of thoughts; Halden Prison, the world's most humane prison; the Salk Institute, an institute for breakthrough science; the Oslo Opera House, a futuristic symbiosis of art and life; and the Centre Pompidou, a modern culture machine. CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE explores how each of these landmarks reflects our culture and guards our collective memory.