Ceci Chuh
The bestselling film by Charlotte Links "Die Betrogene" offers suspenseful thrill with a psychological depth: A London Scotland Yard official returns to her hometown to clarify the murder of her father, and finds out that he was not the superhuman hero for which she always held him. Leading actress Peri Baumeister and Dirk Borchardt in the role of the local police chief, who wants to keep his big city colleague in vain out of his work, form a contrasting investigator duo.
The summer holidays have just begun in Brandenburg, but ten-year-old Lea isn’t going to camp this year with her friends as she normally would. One afternoon she spots five boys lifting a large blue oil barrel over the fence of a paint factory and driving away with their loot on a bicycle trailer. Lea's curiosity is piqued. The next chance she gets, she follows the boys and discovers they built a raft on a small lake. The raft is the boys' property and under no circumstances girls are allowed in their gang. But Lea wants to be part of it very badly and takes them up on a dare. Soon summer is full of adventure.
Sin and Illy have a plan: on a Greek island they want to get 'clean' on their own. But the intention of the two girls fails already on the way to the airport. Finally Sin realizes she has to go the way out of heroin addiction all alone.
After several strokes of fate ends a rage eruption of the otherwise so quiet power engineering technician Felix Grünler with a criminal complaint for assault. A grateful affair for his sister-in-law Karin, who forges an intrigue to gain the inheritance of her mother-in-law. She succeeds in having Felix admitted to psychiatry as incompetent. He is determined not to get into therapy. For doctors, this confirms the picture of the labile patient. But in the other patients Felix gives his consistent anti-attitude in the long run benevolent recognition.
The people of this remote village in the Black Forest don't talk much, but when they do, it's in the Alemannic dialect. Hanna, 21 has traveled far to work here. She shovels manure, milks cows and tries to cope with the farmer, Uwe Kiefer, 39. Rather than sell his milk, he pours it down the drain. The villagers condemn him for continuing the milk strike. Both his marriage and his finances are on the rocks. As Hanna becomes more involved in Uwe's troubles, it seems she may be his only hope. But that's not why she came here. In the neighboring town, she spies on a small family and then Uwe finds her out.
After a run in with the Law, Aylin a 17yr old muslim Girl part of the Turkish diaspora in Germany finds herself sentenced to community service at an out of town horse stable. Beset by trouble at home and school, it is here that she, despite all odds is set on the road to self-discovery. As the pace quickens her blossoming relationship with the Stallion Hördur and her fledgling dreams are tested to breaking point. Can Aylin build a bridge between worlds? And if she can will others follow?
Unannounced, Aziza is once again standing in her room – internship, Portugal, everything canceled. But her room is occupied. Her mother, Trixi, has rented it out. Zach lives there now, a twenty-something from New Zealand, who came to Germany on a one-way ticket. Starting from this situation, the film develops an almost documentary-style portrait of a Kreuzberg ‘situation’: everything is readily available, time, people, summer, streets. And in the end a crash, the film itself: ‘for nothing’?
Alex is 16, a misfit, a drop-out, a failure. She uses drugs; she cuts herself. She has been sent by her despairing adoptive mother to a farm in northern Germany. At first, Alex hates this remote place and the demanding job of looking after the horses. But under the tutelage of Nina, a 30-something taking a break from city life and her partner, Christine, Alex gradually comes to form a bond with the animals in her charge. Then Kathy arrives at the farm to take a holiday, bringing her own, beautiful horse with her. Alex takes an instant dislike to this privileged newcomer. Slowly, though, the barriers between the two are broken down and Kathy finds herself smitten by the streetwise and energetic Alex. The pair starts horsing around, larking about on the mudflats, until one weekend, when they’re alone at the farm, things spiral out of control.
Three young men, all of them outsiders, become friends: Richy (16), who is teased at school, Tim (16), who has moved from the west with his parents and has difficulties getting used to his new life, and Marco (18), who has problems coping with his parents' separation and the rejection he experiences from his father. Richy admires the strong and uncommunicative Marco.
Stevie, a precocious 14-year-old girl must cope with the instabilities of her immoderate parents. When they decide to move to a small provincial town in Germany, Stevie attempts to slip into a normal life. Whilst her parents playfully escape their responsibilities, Stevie tries to make a good impression in town, spreading stories of grandeur and claiming to be the daughter of a diplomat. She makes progress. Yet the good weather doesn’t last and before long, she discovers that her parents have once more resorted to illegal means, as a way of supporting their leisurely lifestyle. As friends and hangers-on of her parents fill their new home, the chaos continually mounts. It is in this atmosphere of physical and emotional destruction, that Stevie must now start to define herself and perhaps even break free.
