Ulrike Kriener
The death of the patriarch in a family run Bavarian brewery leads to a ruthless power struggle between the remaining family which almost ruins the independent brewery.
In the fall of 1938, two Jewish children from Berlin are sent to England by their parents to escape Nazi persecution.
"Everything in life happens for a reason." After the death of his pregnant wife, Schimon clings to this sentence. When he meets Milena just two weeks later and falls head over heels in love with her, he thinks he's found the reason.
The Hartmann family is turned upside down when mother Angelika decides to take in the refugee Diallo, against her husband's will. Amidst the typical chaos of our time, hope remains that the family finds its stability, confidence and peace again - just like the whole country.
After getting his cancer diagnosis, Holm decides to die in Switzerland. With a last big appearance he wants to say goodbye to his family. Holm invites family members and close friends to a dinner to review his successful life. But the evening is not a wistful-emotional family reunion, but a settlement with the head of the family. Old wounds break open, long kept secrets come to light, the different views of the people, the others and the life leads to hard argument and to many a surprise.
Commercial photographer Richard, very satisfied with himself and his life, considers himself the perfect spouse. But only until his wife Charlotte discovers her dream man on a dating portal.
Minette and Paul are married and seem to lead a happy family life. But when Paul began gradually to move away from his wife, it decides to spin and managed to watch the tryst he gave Nora, his new conquest, in a hotel room. The betrayed wife keeps to herself what she witnessed, even when it crosses the opera which was favored by her husband. Following a violent altercation between two lovers, the master mysteriously disappears. The former partner it makes contact with Minette and claims that Paul murdered Nora. To support his point, he shows Minette photo of a dead body could be that of the missing young woman ... A crossover lover-like thriller, where the characters and spectators alike struggle to discern truth from falsehood.
Attorney Caroline, the sensitive Judith, the housewife Eva and the affluent entrepreneur Estelle have been friends for 15 years. Once a year, the ladies go on a weekend break, but this time the trip is not a good star: After the death of her husband Arne wants the mourning Judith completed his pilgrimage started to Lourdes. As faithful friends, the three others join her. However, it does not take long for the strains of the tour to cause many a quarrel.
Kommissarin Lucas investigates the murder of an older woman of the night who is found dead on the bank of the Danube.
Joseph Vilsmaier Two-part TV movie focuses on the tragic events surrounding the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German passenger ship, at the end of World War II. On 30 January 1945, Captain Hellmuth Kehding was in charge of the ship, evacuating wounded soldiers and civilians trapped by the Red Army. Soon after leaving the harbor of Danzig, it was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine and sank in less than an hour.
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.
A cheerful, amusing and melancholic look back at the Munich film festival from the perspective of the people who make up the film festival.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
The relationship between journalist Nina and her mother Eva has always been tense. One day Nina is supposed to be interviewing Richard Gere in Budapest. Her friend Flora and her mother Eva accompany her there. Flora succeeds in defusing the tensions between mother and daughter. Then Eva is suddenly admitted to the hospital. Nina's visit to her mother's sickbed is moving for both women.
A shared love of fish leads to a variety of romantic predicaments in this offbeat comedy from writer and director Doris Dörrie. Otto (Christian Ulmen) and Leo (Simon Verhoeven) are two men from Germany who have launched a successful business in which they import koi, the beautiful Japanese fish, for collectors in their native land. While on a business trip to Japan, Otto and Leo meet Ida (Alexandra Maria Lara), a German tourist who is studying fashion design. Ida begins traveling with the two men, and surprisingly develops an infatuation with the rumpled Otto instead of the handsome Leo. When Ida discovers she's pregnant with Otto's child, the two marry, and upon their return to Germany, Ida attempts to join in the business by creating a line of scarves decorated with koi patterns. However, the honeymoon proves short-lived, and Ida's presence creates a rift between Otto and Leo, as the latter sets up his own concern, raising koi with his new bride, Yoko (Young-Shin Kim).
After Victor, 19 years old, is accused of raping a 17-year-old girl, his teachers -under the direction of principal Cornelia Cordes- have to decide whether he should be suspended or not. The discussion of these nine persons shows the contrasts in human character and reveals some bitter feelings...
Urged by her mother, Anke left her baby for adoption ten years ago. For years afterward, she did not speak to her again. Now the soon-to-be attorney from Hamburg travels back to her home village to make up with her dying mother. She learns that her daughter Christina lives with Alex, a past love of Anke's and Christina's real father. Old wounds break up again and long forgotten feelings of hate as well as love flare up again. Anke leaves her fiancé to face up to her past. She decides in favour of her child and of a life with Alex.
Two middle aged German brothers - one New Age and recently divorced, the other uptight and sceptical - travel to a Zen monastery in Japan in search of enlightenment, or perhaps just in search of themselves.
A life of little Maria who lives in a foster family breaks after a sudden appearance of her mother Melanie who was absent for five years...
Senator Isaak Kohler shoots and kills Professor Winter in a crowded restaurant, while Winter is dining with the struggling idealistic young lawyer, Felix Spat. Kohler puts up no defense and is sentenced to twenty years. Kohler then gets his daughter Helene to pay the reluctant Spat to reinvestigate the case, on the assumption that Kohler is innocent. The newspapers pick up on this and begin to question whether Kohler was wrongly convicted.
The former waiter Ernst Held believes himself to be called higher and seeks self-realization as a poet. When he recites poems to his wife's beautician in an ambiguous situation, his wife puts him out the door. Completely destitute, the thwarted poet must therefore return to the lowlands of life and become the head in the Munich pub "Goldener Löffel".
Micha is 16, a difficult age. Like every year, he spends the summer holidays with his mother and brothers in a country house in Sweden. When the mother goes to Stockholm for a week, Isabelle, the fun-loving daughter of a friend, looks after the children. Micha lives under Isabelle's care, feels taken seriously for the first time and treated as a "man".
A brainy kid clones a "suaver, hipper" version of himself to romance the rock singer girlfriend of his school's meanest bully.
A successful, womanizing middle-aged man decides to move out of the house he shares with his wife after she confesses to having an affair. He looks for a new place to live and ends up moving into his wife's lover's apartment as a roommate. The husband begins to take an interest in the artistic work of the lover and coaches him for a big job interview. Little does he know that the job he's helping the lover to get is within his own company... A story about strange circumstances and the limits of friendship.
