Barbara Morawiecz
A former Olympic champion wants to compete in the Berlin Marathon one last time.
In 1944 many Germans in Eastern Prussia believed like Lena von Mahlenberg, daughter of a local aristocrat, that Hitler would surrender and spare them from being invaded by the vengeful Russian Red Army. He didn't and they had to flee.
Ironies abound in this extremely sad melodrama about Elif (Zuhal Olcay), a Turkish immigrant in Germany who has been sent to prison for murdering her abusive husband. At the time of her imprisonment, she has never ventured outside the Turkish community, and even there has had no friends because of the demands her husband placed on her. She speaks no German. Now, in a place which most people find to be hell on earth, she gains a never-before known taste of freedom among these strangers, who don't even speak her own language. Unfortunately, as a "guest worker," she is horrified to discover that she is soon to be transferred to the horrific prisons of Turkey and will stand trial there for her crime, which will be much less understandingly dealt with in her home country than it would have been in Germany. The false paradise she must say goodbye to is her German prison.
Edith runs a left-wing journal and when her marriage starts to fall apart (her husband is unfaithful), she can find no solace in her son who is more of a problem than an asset. On top of heading toward a divorce and being unable to handle her son's asocial tendencies, her neurotic uncle moves in, demanding personalized care. Just to keep her sanity intact, Edith starts writing in her diary to vent her own feelings and ambitions. As her son goes from bad to worse over a five-year period, it turns out that Edith's diary may be of more benefit than she could have ever imagined. In this adaptation of Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith, director and writer Hans W. Geissendoerfer has maintained Highsmith's psychologically tormented characters while changing the location and time of her story from the U.S. of the 1960s to Germany in the early 1980s.
The "Our Gang" type adventures of German working class kids from a Berlin apartment building (number 67) during the early 1930s. With Nazism's rise, however, their tight-knit group unravels. One leader, Paul, becomes a Nazi.
In this docudrama, police in the countryside near Berlin attempt to trick a confession out of a Polish guest worker for the 1927 murder of an eight-year-old girl.
1964 in Berlin, not long after the raise of the wall that separated the city: ex-prisoner Bruno is chosen by the eastern secret agency to be sent west with a special order. However as soon as he's crossed the border, he reports to the police. He claims his order was to kidnap someone, but he doesn't know who yet. He's forced to continue feignedly. However the east agents don't really trust him and play a double game...
