October 1918: Karl Liebknecht is released from prison and Berlin workers celebrate his release. Although WWI is almost over, the German Kaiserreich in vain sends its last reserves to the slaughter. The working class is in a rebellious mood; the uprising of Kiel’s sailors against war and...
This is part one of a two-part biopic about Karl Liebknecht. In 1914, Germany is arming itself for war. Karl Liebknecht, left-wing revolutionary Social Democrat, workers’ leader and a virulent antimilitarist, is one among 110 SPD members of Parliament who vote against approving war loans. From...
The marriage of Katrin and Richard Lot has become a routine. She has a career and he, as a Marine officer, comes home only once every fourteen days. The children greet him with joy, but she greets him only with anxiety because their marriage is missing its key ingredient: love. She wants a divorce,...
In August of 1914, amidst the public ecstasy surrounding the impending war, Hans Gastl, the young son of a Munich bürger, makes a decision: he will not take part in this war. This resolution signifies a turning point in his life; a farewell to his class and his family.
Master craftsman Richard Gorbacher celebrates his 65th birthday and announces an unusual decision on this day: he wants to adopt Eva, Marion and Renate, three young women from his company. As they are struggling with so many difficulties in their lives, he wants to be their father from now on and...
Adam receives a flashlight with special powers: every liar it shines on flies into the air. Production was cancelled in 1965/66 due to the film's political content. Only in 1989/90 could the director reconstruct the film, where missing sounds and images are replaced with script inserts.
Members of an organised group smuggling heroin from France to Italy send a new shipment of the drug via Sweden, the GDR and Czechoslovakia. A new ballet is about to premiere at the Fibich Theatre in Prague. However, the situation is complicated by a horrific event: prima ballerina Milada Havlová...
Based on a one act play in five scenes by Wolfgang Borchert, "Draußen vor der Tür" depicts the return of a former German soldier from the Eastern Front, to post-WWII Germany and the sobering realities of de-nazification and "peacetime."
The 17-year-old commercial student Doris, a young, blameless girl, lives with her relatives without parents. It is the nerve-wracking circumstances that make her very unhappy - the dream and longing for a fulfilled life seems far away. Then she meets a young man who recognizes her situation, takes...
USA 1964: Three young men are arrested on suspicion of speeding. As it turns out, they are employees of a civil rights center in Mississippi who are fighting against the racist Ku Klux Klan. The disappearance of the activists leads to a political scandal in the USA. There are riots and...
It's Saturday lunchtime in a small town near Munich and there's not much going on. The local bank is already closed, doors and windows are barred. The few passers-by in the main shopping street do not notice that a violent crime is being committed behind these windows. When the police later take up...
1944 - Soviet prisoners of war work under inhumane conditions on the Tharau estate in East Prussia. After a hunting trip, an illustrious circle of friends of the house and SS officers meet there. Anne, a non-political rendant who works at the manor, finds herself in a conflict situation, as her...
Single crime writer Tom Clempner receives a delivery of goods that he did not order. Out of the box emerges a domestic robot called Graumer, whose pleasant female voice reveals it to be the latest ultra-de-luxe model. The sender's address, the agency for the placement and rental of domestic staff,...
Theme of this scenic documentation is the consistent preparation of the Franco-German War by Bismarck and leading Prussian military, who, with the help of the conservative and liberal Berlin press, created the mood in which the publication of the heavily redacted "Emser Depesche" showed an effect...