In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she...
Sabine Wulff is almost 18 when she is released from the juvenile detention center. She doesn't want to return to her unsupportive parents or to her former boyfriend Jimmy, who got her into trouble by persuading her to steal cigarettes. She instead chooses to begin an honest life by getting a job...
Young people living in a children’s home in Mecklenburg talk about their unstable home situations and domestic violence. Many of them have alcoholic parents and some are in danger of going down the same path. They speak openly about the past and their hopes for a better life. The documentary...
The Prenzlauer Berg district in the former East Berlin was a particularly intense example of the "short summer of anarchy" on the heels of the fall of the Wall. This merry, teary swan song is a pastiche of dancing seniors, revelling bohemians, transvestites from the West, and Balkan musicians. On a...
Portrait of the two main actors of the children's film "White Cloud Carolin", Andreas Roll and Constanze Berndt. They are observed and interviewed on several days during the making of the film. The two children introduce themselves directly to the viewer and talk openly and self-confidently about...
In three parts, the documentary takes a look at the lives of three working mothers in East Berlin. Carola is a nude model and cleaner, Sabine is a singer and Heike is a secretary. All the women have to bring up their children alone, some of them abandoned by their husbands, some of them having...
The filmmaker tells the story of her own grandmother, who died in a home, full of longing for her granddaughter. Being forgotten by sons and daughters, by the young, the beautiful and the successful is the fate of the elderly in this era.
The documentary reports on the goings-on at the only GDR racecourse in Berlin-Karlshorst. Pensioner Herta Rogau, who has been in charge of a betting counter for 15 years, tells how she came to this work and why she never dared to gamble herself. Her assessment of betting, gambling addicts, losers...
It’s only after the separation from her husband that another man tells her how valuable she is: the Chladek family, she’s a teacher, he’s a student. The first few years were nothing but quarrels: the Surau family, he’s a plumber, she’s a postal worker. Should she really intend to get...
"The Free Orchestra" is a group of young people who have various careers, and get together in their free time to make music. Improvisation and original hand made instruments mark the group's style. The individual members of the band are filmed at their daily work life and at one of their concerts....
