Germany

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In Nerven, writer-director-producer Robert Reinert tried to capture the “nervous epidemic” caused by war and misery which “drives people mad”. This unique portrait of the life in 1919 Germany, filmed on location in Munich, describes the cases of different people from all levels of society: Factory owner Roloff who looses his mind in view of catastrophies and social disturbances, teacher John who is the hero of the masses and Marja who turns into a radical revolutionary. Using different fragments the Munich Film Museum could reconstruct this forgotten German classic which is a historic document and anticipates already elements of the Expressionist cinema of the 1920s.Read More »

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Thomas Heise’s documentary portrays the meeting of officials and citizens in the district office of Berlin-Mitte in 1984.The movie uniquely displays how socialist officals and citizens interact.
Since finishing the film in GDR times was impossible for political reasons (it was in fact illegaly shot) it was first performed in 2001.Read More »

France in the 15th Century: The country is marked by the wars with England and internal power struggles. King Charles sees himself powerless against the state. Suddenly a young woman named Johanna emerges from the people, who claims that the Archangel Gabriel appointed her to save France. First the king doubts her words, but he sees that the people, through her are gaining new courage.Read More »

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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.Read More »

In an enchanted forest, the princely brothers Michael and Andreas get lost and are transformed, by a mountain spirit who jealously guards his underground treasure, into animals until the unlikely event of sincere love from a human. The only persons who may be able to give such love are the local commoner sisters Snowwhite and Rose-red, who are kind and helpful by nature and stand to harvest unimagined rewards.Read More »

Synopsis
Ulrike Ottinger, then a young painter, lived in Paris in the 1960s. Now a film-maker, she looks back on that time, weaving memories of the Parisian life and the upheavals of the time into a cinematic poem with the city at its center.Read More »

A young teacher in East Berlin struggles with accepting his homosexuality.Read More »

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30-year-old Max works as an emergency doctor in a Berlin hospital. He has been in love with the attractive Coco for a long time, with whom he shares a well-kept apartment. Coco jealously defends the relationship, while Max feels restricted in his freedom. One day Max dials the wrong number and falls in love with a voice on the other end of the phone that says only one word: “Hello”. On nightly forays through the city, Max looks for the woman who owns the voice and hopes to escape the close proximity of Coco. In a billiard salon he finally meets Marie, who is accompanied by her partner Kurt. Shortly afterwards, Marie and Max are involved in a car accident that causes them to hug each other and make love in the rain on the street. When Max and Coco later have a party, Marie and Kurt are guests at the door. As a result, Max and Marie try to couple their respective partners together.Read More »

Elaha, 22, believes she must restore her supposed innocence before she weds. A surgeon could reconstruct her hymen but she cannot afford such an operation. She asks herself: why does she have to be a virgin anyway, and for whom?

5 wins, 7 nominations.Read More »