Martin Benrath
A naive girl's love for Switzerland is put to the test in this satiric comedy. Irina (Yelena Panova) is a woman from Russia who all her life has always been fascinated by Switzerland and longs to live there some day, though her notion of Swiss life has more to do with Heidi and old movies set in the Alps than reality.
A black comedy about the dream of freedom and the difficulty of obtaining this: While Molly (Eva Mattes), Elisabeth (Katja Flint) and Maria (Ornella Muti) are great friends, but at the same time completely different. Molly is a difficult stressed housewife and mother of three children, Elisabeth is the perfect career woman and Maria uses already in their third marriage sex appeal to get ahead in life. But one day it turns out that the three except their friendship still connects another great thing in common: They are all tired of her life as a wife. And so begins the story of a rabenscharzen comedy about the dream of freedom and the difficulties to achieve this. The only question is: How are they merely their husbands going on?
Germany in the Thirties. A movie teller realizes that his profession is not longer needed. Silent movies are not produced any longer. Telling stories is the only thing the man was ever good in, so he does not know what to do now. As political circumstances are changing dramatically these days in Germany, he gets new hope that things will again be going better for him...
"Stalingrad" follows the progress of a German Platoon through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After having half their number wiped out and after being placed under the command of a sadistic Captain, the Lieutenant of the platoon leads his men to desert. The men of the platoon attempt to escape from the city which is now surrounded by the Soviet Army.
Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.
For fans of history, this glimpse of Munich society in the 1920s will be a much-treasured event. The story revolves around an art-gallery manager who puts on a show featuring the scandalous works of a woman artist who committed suicide. He is unjustly accused of having committed adultery with her, and for some reason the authorities decide to make an example of him. He is imprisoned at about the same time that Hitler and the nascent Nazi party attempt the infamous Beer Hall Putsch, and the gallery manager's girlfriend and a Swiss writer valiantly (and unsuccessfully) attempt to get better justice for him. Nobody in authority, it seems, has the courage to take up the challenge of righting this particular injustice.
During the Second World War, a small group of students at Munich University begin to question the decisions and sanity of Germany's Nazi government. The students form a resistance cell which they name the "White Rose" after a newsletter that is secretly distributed to the student body. At first small in numbers and fearful of discovery, the White Rose begins to gain massive support after a Nazi Gauleiter nearly incites a student riot after a provokative speech. At this point, the matter is taken over by the German Gestapo, who pledge to hunt down and destroy the members of the White Rose.
Made during Bergman's tax-related exile in Germany, the film continues the story of Katarina and Peter Egermann, the feuding, childless, professional couple who appear in one episode of "Scenes From A Marriage." After Peter perpetrates a horrendous crime in its first scene, the rest of the film consists of a non-linear examination of his motivations, incorporating a police psychological investigation, scenes from the Egermanns' married life, and dream sequences.
In the late 1970s the German secret service fights against RAF terrorism and searches for constitutional enemies in the public service. Teacher Brasch implicates secret service agent Körner and the government in the suicide of a young teen. As a result Brasch and the exposed Körner are fired.
Anna is a Jewish girl in Germany. When the Nazis come to power in the 1930s, her family has to flee the country without being able to bring any of their belongings. Even young Anna's pink toy rabbit has been confiscated along with the family's other possessions. Initially the family lives in Switzerland, but even here they come to feel the antisemitism. And when money becomes scarce, and Anna's father can't find work as a journalist and Jew, they move on to France, where they are no long submitted to racial discrimination, but struggle financially. Eventually the entire family manages to go to England.
In heaven there is faith, and love. Only in hell there is justice. Everyone here gets the part that suits them best. Therefore, hell is the place for eternal pleasures.
Reconstruction of the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and the following farcical military court procedures.
Based on historical events, the film tells the story of Operation Anthropoid which led to the assassination of the German SS leader Heydrich in Prague by Czech rebels led by Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis.
A German living in India during World War II is blackmailed by the English to impersonate an SS officer on board a cargo ship leaving Japan for Germany carrying a large supply of rubber for tyres. His mission is to disable the scuttling charges so the captain cannot sink the ship if they are stopped by English warships.
In this war drama, three Nazi survivors are rescued after their battleship sank. Initially they are given heroes' accolades for their courage, but then it becomes apparent that these men actually jumped ship three hours before the boat sank. The men are tried and subsequently executed.
