Therese Affolter
As CFO, Alexander Meier fights for the survival of the long-established Walser company – dutifully, quickly and perfectionist to the point of self-abandonment. When Hans-Werner Brockmann, an unscrupulous top manager, is appointed, he gets involved in a power struggle that increasingly throws him off track. Before the ruins of his existence, Alexander sees only one possibility left to take revenge on Brockmann.
Marie, once a successful comic artist, lives among the prostitutes in Amsterdam's Red Light District where a gruesome event at her neighbors forces her to take action.
The little witch is only 127 years old – too young for the annual coven of witches. Although she is not yet old enough to be a real witch she wants to become a really good one. This decision causes trouble inside her magic world.
Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.
Under the auspicious name "Magical Mystery" the Berlin techno label BummBumm Records wants to go on a rave tour. Karl Schmidt aka Charly himself was once an aspiring artist on the scene, until he retired after a nervous breakdown five years ago. Since then he lives in a supervised withdrawal WG in Hamburg. Now, as a driver and custodian for the party-loving DJs and their producers, he becomes part of "Magical Mystery", trying to lead a self-determined life after years of patronizing and well-intentioned advice.
Conflict-avoidant Thomas just wants a relaxing holiday in the Swiss Alps. But, it's a slippery slope from the beginning. In an effort to repair his own family ties and to impress his boss, he takes his family and his employer's daughter with him. Tragedy strikes and Thomas feels responsible. Should he be his typical passive self? Or risk doing the right thing at the expense of his relationships with his family and employer?
Leni, in her mid-fifties, runs the local bakery with her son in a small Swiss town. When she falls in love with a much younger Argentinean dance teacher, her world is turned upside down.
In reality Emil and Larissa would never have been a couple she is an idolized singer, he is a shy outsider. Ironically, Emil is just getting to know Larissa when she dies unexpectedly. He pretends to have been her boyfriend and finally gets the recognition he has always yearned for, with the added bonus of a surrogate family in the form of Larissas. Things would be just great if Emil didnt fall in love - with Larissas sister Nora. The more he gets to know her, the harder it becomes for him to pretend.
The Detour is about a young woman travelling through Europe in search of herself and the truth of life. It is based on meetings between goatherd Joanna and Austrian author and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Joanna is lost after her boyfriend dumps her at a Women's Relief Centre in Rotterdam. She works in a library and visits the theatre, where she first sees a play by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's philosophy permeates Joanna's thoughts. When Camille invites her to visit the French Pyrenees, she accepts. On the way, she decides to visit Bernhard in Austria. She attempts to start a relationship with him and thereby finds herself.
A cheerless petrol station buffet. A woman creates for herself her own dream world, far away. A stranger only wants some petrol.
A series of short, absurd, humouristic episodes taking place in Passau, Bavaria. There is, among others, a documentary piece describing a drinking contest, a clerk's day-dreaming Hitler fantasies, a shy nun struggling to get oriented in a city (then turning into a pianist) during an orgy, a showmaster killing his guests with a thresher... All episodes are loosely glued together by a variation of always the same scene: an annoyed TV show / TV movie producer trying to convince both director and female main character that the last episode is unacceptable with respect to consumer needs and professional standards.
Alex (Thierry Van Werveke), a pest exterminator who lives with his grandmother, picks up a stranded woman (Kate Valk) who claims to be the American daughter of a spy.
Heldenplatz centers on a Jewish family in the Vienna of 1988. The main character, Professor Josef Schuster, a mathematician, who can no longer stand the anti-Semitism he still finds in Austria 50 years after the Anschluss – commits suicide by jumping out of his apartment window onto the historic Heldenplatz before the play begins.
Based on the research for his non-fiction book "Der Baader-Meinhoff-Komplex", "Spiegel" journalist Stefan Aust wrote the screen play to Reinhard Hauff’s controversial feature film that re-narrates the startling trial against the RAF terrorists Baader, Meinhoff, Ensslin, and Raspe. The trial that started in May 1975 in the Stammheim maximum-security prison extended over 192 days and ended with a lifetime sentence for all defendants.
Olga and Ruth become friends. Olga is independent, separated from her husband, living with an immigrant pianist, and teaching feminist literature. Ruth is withdrawn, a painter, possibly mentally ill. Ruth dreams in black and white, sometimes of her suicide. Olga lectures on a 19th-century writer, von Günderrode, a suicide after the breakup of her intense friendship with Bettina Brentano. Ruth's husband Franz encourages the women's friendship, then, as Olga draws Ruth out and the friendship deepens, he becomes jealous. After the women travel to Egypt, Franz has a tirade. Ruth seems crushed between her husband and her friend, and how she responds is the film's climax.
