Enno Trebs

A hot, dry summer, like so many in recent years. Forest fires are uncontrollable. Four young people meet in a holiday home on the Baltic Sea not far from Ahrenshoop. Slowly and imperceptibly they are enclosed by the walls of flame. A red sky arches over them. They doubt, they are afraid – not because of the fires, it is love that scares them.

On March 25, 1996, the publicist Jan Philipp Reemtsma is kidnapped. His son Johann and his wife Ann Kathrin witness how their home is transformed overnight into a police control center. Two police officers, the family’s lawyer and a close friend form a community of fate, united by their common goal of bringing Johann’s father home as quickly and unharmed as possible.

Five houses, one bus stop, cows and nothing but fields. 24-year-old Christin lives on the farm of her long-term boyfriend Jan. The exciting post-reunification years that defined her childhood are long gone. Her relationship is loveless. She keeps the cherry liqueur close at hand. In the shimmering heat of summer, time seems to stand still – until 46-year-old wind energy engineer, Klaus, arrives.

Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin's urban development. When the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. But falling in love anew, Undine reworks the myth of the mysterious water spirit as a modern fairy-tale in a disenchanted world.

Franz and Lilly run their father's cattle farm together. While Franz is perfectly happy with his life as a cowboy, Lilly dreams of a bigger life. That's when she meets Chris, a musician, with whom she starts a romantic affair.

Glocke had a simple plan to set the pimp Hermann's SUV on fire, become an internet star and impress Lena. Instead, he drops into a mobile toilette and becomes a webfail. He decides to follow the web call to hike and search for the drop-out Friedrich. Together with Judith, Steffi, Elias and Paule he heads of into the Harz. As access to internet and smartphones are not allowed the plan to start all over again works and the adventure brings the five together. But each teenager has a secret of their own and soon the hike leads the teens to face their past.

The only time Maria feels liberated is when she is playing the organ. Bach’s music is something you feel in your gut. At home she bears the brunt of responsibility – both for her rebellious sister Hannah, two years her junior, who is busy planning her escape from the village, and for her father, Johann.

Having failed to get into the police force, Margarete takes up training as a security guard. One night she runs into a sexually agressive ex-colleague who insists on hailing a taxi to take her home to his place. Enter Tiger: short brown hair, a tough girl and a fighter, the cab driver. Realising that the situation is far from consensual, Tiger speeds off with Margarete, leaving her companion standing in the street. It won’t be the last time she rushes to Margarete’s aid. Tiger lives in an attic flat with two men. She knows how to wield a baseball bat. Stealing a uniform from security and renaming Margarete ‘Vanilla’, she begins to steer her life in a completely different direction.

Summer 1968. 14-year-old Wolfgang is deported from his family in the secluded Church Welfare Institution sanctuary. One thing is clear for Wolfgang: His yearning for freedom, he will not soon buried in the bog.

"House in the Lake" takes a look on an oppressive and intimate family. We follow the holidays in their remote summer house, the every day and the fragile normality, where the three kids absorb and partially channels the emotional energies of their parents.

Is Mario unable or reluctant to remember the man he is confronted with during an offender-victim-mediation session? He is aware that only the truth about the violent attack that night could save him. But the situation escalates.

In 1914 on a family estate, Oda helps a wounded anarchist, and as their illicit friendship deepens, a family turmoil erupts as the war closes in.

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery.

Police chief Krause celebrates Christmas every year with his two sisters. However, this year everything will be different.