Johanna (Katharina Thalbach), after escaping Nazi Germany, takes refuge on a friend’s family estate in Finland. There, she experiences a passionate erotic romance with her friend’s brother, Ragnar (Jukka-Pekka Palo), who shares her anti-fascist feelings and wants to join the resistance movement in France. Based on Klaus Mann’s novel.Read More »
After resigning from office, the chancellor moved to a small town in the Uckermark with her husband and dog. But initially it is not easy for her to leave the hectic city life and politics behind. But then there is a death. The ex-Chancellor finally has a job again.Read More »
Rebellious young Werther is passionately, but hopelessly, in love with Lotte. Although he knows that she is married to somebody who can offer her a secure future, Werther tries to be near her. Lotte cannot decide between these two men. She eventually rejects Werther, who does not survive her decision. Based on the novel by Goethe. Director Egon Günther and set designer Helga Schütz make cameo appearances.
—DEFA Film LibraryRead More »
Based on Klaus Mann’s 1934 novel “Entkommen zum Leben”. Johanna, a young Berliner, flees the Nazis in 1934. She goes to Finland and begins an affair with a man of similar Radical beliefs. His death encourages her to join the resistance in ParisRead More »
Berlin, 1948/1949. The town is divided into two sectors. The world is close to World War III. West Berlin is kept alive by the biggest airlift in history. While the city is deadlocked, three teenagers set out to fulfil their dreams: Völpel (Hilmar Thate), ex-executioner, receives secret information from Police Headquarters. Gladow (Ulrich Wesselmann), 17 years old, wants to be like Al Capone. Lisa Gabler (Katharina Thalbach) dreams of buying Berlins biggest revue venue the ‘Friedrichstadt Palast.’ But suddenly, the droning of the airplanes ceases? Based on a true story from the times of the ‘Berlin Blockade.’Read More »
From timeout.com:
Few film-makers wear their hearts as openly on their sleeves as Margarethe von Trotta, and her fascination with women (their relationships with each other and their definition – often redefinition – of themselves) is as apparent in this, her first solo feature, as it was in the later The German Sisters or Friends and Husbands. Christa Klages (Engel) is a young mother who turns terrorist and bank robber to prevent the closure of a crêche which she helps to run and her daughter attends. On the run with her friend and sometime lover, Christa is pursued by the police, and more mysteriously by a young woman (Thalbach) who was her hostage in the bank raid. What von Trotta has to say about her women is compelling, and she remains one of the few film-makers to portray terrorists convincingly. But the enigma of the hostage runs through the film as elusively as a character in a dream – vitally important at any given moment, but irritatingly meaningless when taken as a whole – and undermines the conviction of this feminist thriller which is otherwise so gloriously rooted in West Germany’s present.Read More »
“Thomas Brasch’s Domino opens with glimpses of the Kurfürstendamm shrouded in snow, scenes of Christmas bustle. Lisa, a successful actress at the Schiller Theater, drops off her daughter at the Bahnhof Zoo and faces the presentiment of holidays to be spent alone. In the week to come, her life will come unraveled, her taken-for-granted security called into question. An undercurrent of the inexplicable and the unexpected will grip the artiste and ultimately sweep her into oblivion. Domino focuses on a woman living in abeyance…. Everywhere she turns the past seems to be on her trail: she confronts visions of her deceased mother (also an actress) while thinking of her own daughter. She learns that the director Lehrter, who seeks to engage her to star in his comeback production of Goethe’s Stella, may very well be her father [and learns also] of his internment in a concentration camp. Encounters on the street irritate and befuddle her. Passersby speak of mass unemployment, worry about pending war, and wander about sobbing, disoriented and confused….Read More »