Annette Paulmann
Farmer’s wife and mother of three Hanni worries about her youngest, Magdalena, who’s smaller and more sensitive than her siblings. She gets stomach flu and can’t see well. The doctors prescribe nothing but panaceas, and don’t take her case seriously. While Hanni searches for a doctor who will take Magdalena’s symptoms seriously, her husband and sons feel neglected. Ultimately, Hanni will have to take on the government, and confront her childhood memories of grim courtrooms and dark halls. A family drama of forceful intensity, a courtroom thriller based on a true story.
Diagnosis burnout: The successful career woman Toni Lehmstedt can be referred to a psychiatric clinic after a physical breakdown. Urs Egger's free adaptation of the biographical novel of the same name by Miriam Meckel with Grimme award winner Marie Bäumer in the leading role.
Shortly before her 40th birthday, the successful surgeon Anne May is plagued by self-doubt: Actually, she would have to be satisfied, since she has long been married to her childhood sweetheart Peter and has built up a working family life with him. Nevertheless, Anne is deeply unhappy. When her husband is on a business trip, she meets Carolin Winter, the mother of a school friend of her son. Quickly, the two women make friends, Anne gets carried away by the joie de vivre of the native Chilean.
August Staudenmeyer returns after thirty years absence as a wealthy man in his hometown Gerbersau. First, the successful businessman is received with open arms. But when he stands up for the outlawed widow Katharina Entriss, he gets sidelined. August realizes that the narrow-mindedness of the Gerbersauer has by no means changed. Richer for an experience and a love, he leaves home a second time.
Christmas is just two weeks away, it is pouring with rain, and Ben is struggling to get into the Christmas spirit. Suddenly, Bens life takes a turn for the better when Santa Niklas Goodfellow and his Christmas caravan come crashing down to Earth in the middle of thunderstorm and land in Foggy Lane. Santa is on the run from the ruthless Gerold Geronimus Goblynch and his army of nutcrackers who have outlawed all of the old magical ways and have transformed the bright and peaceful Christmas world into a dark and hostile place, governed by greed and money. Goblynch has banned work for all Santas and confined the Christmas angels to tiny prison cells, where they can no longer hear the dearest wishes of children. Goblynch also wants to force Santa Niklas Goodfellow, the last real Santa, to work for his commercialized Christmas company and forces him to do hard labour in the ordering department of the Christmas Palace.
The subject of male prostitution gets a distinctly zany and offbeat twist in Stellungswechsel (AKA Special Escort), Maggie Peren's tale of five male underdogs who promulgate themselves as female escorts in the city of Munich. Of that group, we meet policeman Gy, in hot water with his insurance company and enduring the vicissitudes of an on-again, off-again romance with comely Daphne; twentysomething Lasse, who lives with his mom and is pathetically henpecked by her; Giselher, a chronically unemployed former manager; Frank, a philologist who spends his days as a house husband; and Olli, a deli proprietor whose business is rapidly going under. These five conjure up the wild idea of charging for liaisons with emotionally needy women, but the scheme doesn't exactly go as planned - as none can even begin to anticipate the eccentricities or oddities of the female clients who turn up in response to their offer.
Inspired by the German folktale, Wilhelm, a file clerk, falls in love with a huntsman's daughter. In order to marry, Wilhelm must prove his worth as a hunter and gain her father's approval. Naive and desperate, he makes a deal with a devil named Pegleg.
