German

Plot summary [wikipedia.org]
The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. We are introduced to the central protagonist of the story, Hans Castorp, a young German. We encounter him when he is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his home town. Just before beginning this professional career he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Hans is symbolically transported away from the familiar life and mundane obligations he has known, in what he later learns to call the flatlands , to the rarefied mountain air and introspective little world of the sanatorium.Read More »

Background/Synopsis wrote:
This is the story of a young black man who is verbally harassed by an older woman on a streetcar while the other passengers remain silent. But the schwarzfahrer shall eventually have his revenge.Read More »

The Berlin-set tale of an aimless twentysomething is a delightfully unforced comedy with a sure grasp of character and setting. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

OH BOY is a charmingly self-ironic portrait of a young man and the city he lives in. Shot in vivid black and white, the film alternates between melancholy and humour, and shows the protagonist’s search for his place in a world where everything yet nothing seems possible. INDIWIRE

Low-Budget ‘Oh Boy’ Beats Epic ‘Cloud Atlas’ at German Film Academy Awards
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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Storyline:
Prologue: The murderer “Boss” Huller – after having spent ten years in prison – breaks his silence to tell the warden his story. “Boss”, a former trapeze artist, and his wife own a cheap side-show that displays ”erotic sensations”. But he longs for his former glamorous life in the circus. When he meets the orphan Berta-Marie, he falls under her spell and leaves his wife and young son behind. He makes Berta-Marie his partner in a new trapeze number. One day, the famous trapeze artist Artinelli takes note of them and engages them for his trapeze show in Berlin. Their salto mortale becomes an immediate sensation. Calculatedly and cold, Artinelli seduces Berta-Marie and destroys “Boss'” happiness. Written by Christian TaubeRead More »

Quote:
The second feature of German director Valeska Grisebach is one of the pleasant surprises of the Berlin Competition here – a quietly unassuming tale of marital infidelity told in a brisk 90 minutes that is unexpectedly packed with a raw emotional power. It derives that power as much from the non-professional actors’ performances as from Grisebach’s austere approach to the material. Sehnsucht (Longing) is one of those rare films for which the overused axiom “less is more” is totally justified. With her latest feature, Grisebach could give the Dardenne brothers a run for their money.Read More »

Fashion model Sylvie falls asleep drunk in the cab of Munich taxi driver Paul, and an impossible love affair beckons. Renegade director Klaus Lemke had previously startled German TV audiences with the biker drama Rocker, announcing an unprecedented, unvarnished freshness and authenticity with nonprofessional actors, real dialect and on-the-fly style. In Sylvie, he adds a disarming tenderness.Read More »

The fates of three German-born Muslims in Berlin collide as they struggle to find their place between faith and modern life in contemporary western society, caught at a crossroads where alluring liberated lifestyles conflict with deeply-rooted traditions.Read More »

A security guard catches a young woman stealing in a supermarket, but something about
her makes him do something he has never done before.Read More »

ksandness from United States wrote:
While the title makes it sound like a combination of The Sound of Music and a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, this is actually a serious film about the real-life Edelweiss Piraten, a loosely organized gang of German anti-Hitler youth who harassed the Nazis and hid Jews and others who were in trouble.Read More »