German

While recovering from a mental breakdown, the young Rita Seidel recalls the last two years, in which she fell in love with Manfred, a chemist who is ten years older. As Manfred became disillusioned with his opportunities in East Germany, he moved to the West. Rita followed him there and tried to persuade him to return but soon realized he would never do it. Rita comes to terms with the past and decides to concentrate on her work and the building of a socialist society. Although some of the characters are shown as overzealous in their support of the regime, for obvious reasons the nature of the East German dictatorship is never depicted or discussed. The Stasi, the all-pervasive secret police headed by the director’s brother Markus Wolf, is not mentioned. The film is set in the period immediately before the erection of the Berlin Wall.Read More »

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Berlin, a summer in the age of neoliberalism: the spectre of the soviet avant-garde is haunting the city. A young Georgian contract-worker is surprised to find the ghost of the Russian revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in his kitchen. At the same time, his friend Kasimir inherits a big fortune, but what shall he do with all this money? Framed by a travel through time leading to Flaubert’s 19th Century und the shooting of a revisionist melodrama for German television, the film follows the adventures of these three characters in contemporary Berlin. A suprematist digital comedy about the transmission of emancipatory energies.Read More »

Director Konrad Wolf’s gritty and controversial tale follows two young women who go to work at a uranium mine in Wismut, East Germany. With anarchists, former S.S. soldiers, and ex-Russian officers working in close proximity, the mine becomes a microcosm of world politics and social unrest.Read More »

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In Echigo in Japan the snow often lies several feet deep well into May covering landscape and villages. Over the centuries the inhabitants have organized their lives accordingly. In order to record their very distinctive forms of everyday life, their festivals and religious rituals Ulrike Ottinger journeyed to the mythical snow country – accompanied by two Kabuki performers. Taking the parts of the students Takeo and Mako they follow in the footsteps of Bokushi Suzuki who in the mid-19th century wrote his remarkable book “Snow Country Tales”.Read More »

Synopsis
Mimmi lives with her mother in an apart-ment on the edge of town. They won’t be living together for much longer because Mimmi is about to take her final exams at school and will soon move out. Mimmi’s mother is still young and sometimes wish-es Mimmi didn’t need her so much and yet, at other times, that she needed her more, like before. But Mimmi herself doesn’t say very much and it’s often hard to tell what thoughts preoccupy her. She sees her girlfriend, goes out with her boyfriend; she also has the odd flash-in-the-pan relationship with other men. She is often alone – perhaps just waiting for the time to pass, or for a new life to begin. On a school trip to Paris she meets and sleeps with a young man. When she gets back to Berlin she discovers that she is pregnant. She heads for Paris again where she spends two days trying to find the father of her child. She has no money and doesn’t even know where she can sleep. She begins to daydream – and gets more and more tired.Read More »

Young filmmaker Julian, ironically played by director Julian Radlmaier himself, falls for a young expat and offers her the leading part in his wannabe Communist fairy tale film.Read More »

In Christian Petzold’s carefully crafted reworking of the ‘Postman Always Rings Twice’ story set in a desolate region of northeastern Germany, Ali (Hilmi Sözer) is a shrewd, well-off immigrant from Turkey. He’s married to Laura (Petzold favourite Nina Hoss), an attractive German woman whom he rescued from a bad past, and owns a string of snack bars. Life is placid, if a little joyless, until Ali makes the mistake of hiring disreputable ex-soldier Thomas (Benno Fürmann) as his driver. From then on, things are placid only on the surface…Read More »

Three Georgians have to clean a castle where an arms manufacturer’s art collection is on exhibit. They aren’t welcome at the opening party and are banished to the attic, but downstairs the splendid buffet attracts them. Why not just ignore the unfair prohibition and cross the line of class society?Read More »

Peter Munk, a poor charcoal burner, lives with his mother in The Black Forest. Poverty prevents him from marrying Lisbeth, the girl he loves. When he comes across the Little Glass Man, the good spirit of the forest, the young man asks him for assistance. His wish is granted and he becomes rich. But the fool soon loses all his money after gambling at the inn. In desperation, he asks Dutch Michael, the evil spirit of the forest, to help him to become rich again. The mean giant agrees and gives Peter all the riches in the world, but on one condition: the young man will exchange his heart for a cold stone. He can now marry Lisbeth but can a heart of ice make you and the others happy…?Read More »