Daniela – a single mother, whose boyfriend left for the US – believes wholeheartedly in Cuba's revolutionary new order. Meanwhile, in Florida, a plot is afoot. Under the command of an American officer, four Cubans ex-patriots and a Guatemalan land on the Cuban coast to prepare a US invasion of...
This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal...
In spring 1957 Budapest, former lovers Sándor and Mónika reunite after 16 years at a street‐corner café. Their conversation flashes back to 1941, when Hungary joined WWII under Horthy and eight fresh teacher‐graduates, including Sándor and Mónika, vowed lifelong solidarity. War and...
The time is World War II, and Juergen Siebusch and his mother are retreating along with the German army, just ahead of the invading Russian forces. Both mother and son hole up in the town of Hohengoerse, where Juergen finds some work watching over sheep - and learns a bit about the facts of sheep...
The long-established aristocratic von Poggenpuhl family has seen better days. Towards the end of the 19th century, the major's widow and her children have long since eked out a poor existence characterized by a lack of money. Only the dusty ancestral gallery is a reminder of past fame and fortune....
In spring 1946, Warsaw historian Wojtek arrives in a Polish provincial town to study the Renaissance. He soon becomes entangled in the fierce postwar power struggle between the Soviet-backed People’s Government—nationalizing industry and land—and reactionary exiled forces waging “bandit...
1945: Buchenwald concentration camp shortly before liberation: Polish inmate Janowski rescues a small child hidden in a suitcase. A child in the world of death means hope and danger at the same time. When his fellow inmates and members of the secret resistance group discover the boy, they are faced...
In 1955, Michael Vierkant, a Jew who had emigrated during the Nazi era, returns from abroad to the Federal Republic of Germany to obtain the conviction of Korn, the former informer responsible for the murder of his sister. Korn is back in office; Michael's efforts remain unsuccessful. There is a...
Based on a true story from 1936: Klara Baumann, a working-class woman, communist and mother, flees her German homeland for neighboring Czechoslovakia. When a party courier is arrested in Berlin, Klara agrees to return to Germany with illegal material. On behalf of the central courier service, she...
Schwalk, the new shaft foreman of a road construction brigade, is a go-getter and used to success - both at work and with women. But this time things don't go so smoothly. Although he initially has an easy time with the brigadier Erika, who falls in love with him, things come to a head at work. His...
At the end of the 1950s, the production of optics in the German Democratic Republic has reached top quality and instigates interest in the West. When national demand rises strongly and at the same time the export to South America heavily decreases, the Volkspolizei - the GDR police force - starts...
