Caroline Peters

Christmas – usually not the favourite holiday of the atheist Wanda, a surgeon and feminist mother of teenage Nina. And most certainly not in times of a pandemic.

Amina Handke adapts the 1967 theatre play Kaspar written by her father Peter Handke. Instead of a young man being tortured by language, we meet an old woman played by the director’s mother, Libgart Schwarz, who loses her linguistic abilities while rehearsing for the very same play. What begins as a pure and playful family meta-fiction turns into a surreal, partly nonsensical Babylonian confusion, it’s just that it’s not different languages that are clashing but layers and fragments of the German language, the language of the father. The film avoids the traps of representational cinema. It’s all noises and muttering, injunctions and an almost Dadaist pleasure in repeating sentences until they completely lose their meaning.

The family dinner at Stephan and Elisabeth could have been wonderful. But when Thomas announces that he and his pregnant girlfriend Anna are going to call their son Adolf, the hosts and the family friend René are stuck in the throat.

Wanda's world has been turned upside down when her teenage daughter Nina suddenly turns up in a hijab. Secretly, Nina has converted to Islam; she exclusively eats halal, strictly observes the prayer times and wishes to be called Fatima. Mother of a liberal Viennese patchwork family, Wanda is appalled; she has always strongly stood against religious fanaticism. However, all attempts to make Nina see reason fail. To make matters worse, Wanda’s ex-husband has just fathered a child with his latest wife, and Wanda begins to yearn for a time when her only problems were her daughter’s truancy and pot smoking. When she meets Hanife, the mother of Nina's Muslim girlfriend, she finds an ally. Hanife, who immigrated to Austria as a child, is determined to save her daughter from the extremely old-fashioned image of women, which Nina is enthusiastically preaching. Eva Spreitzhofer's culture-clash comedy negotiates a highly topical theme with playful ease.

Julian is a 12-year-old boy whose family is just scraping by in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany in the early 1960s . When his mother and younger sister go away for a while, he is left mostly alone in the apartment while his father works in the coal mine. He has to confront the confusing world of adults and older boys and the older girl next door on his own. Finally events build up and threaten to tear the family apart.

Once during a party two friends get an idea: let's exchange wives...

Sophie Haas and her team are forced to state everything they know about the committed crime in the nearby village.

One year after Stine's husband died, she reclusive lives with her daughter Stephanie in a suburban villa which falls into disrepair. She encounters the charming craftsman Roger, who makes her an offer right on cue: He consents to carry out repairs as much as necessary, which have to be paid back, only when Stine has the ability to. Instead, he just wants to get a warm meal and an shower at times. Eventually one night. Stine accepts that deal despite she risks her daughter's relationship. Written by Anonymous

Rebecca and Bruno meet in a bar, in a not particularly happy moment of their life, and they start dating. They consider themselves just friends and talk to each other about everything. But if Rebecca stops being so worried about what the bourgeoisie might think and say, and if Bruno realizes he can't live without Rebecca, they will both understand reality.

In the middle of the night, a special police force storms the bedroom of management consultant Juliane Schubert. Just returned from a business trip to the Middle East, Juliane is questioned after her arrest by the commissioners Theissen and Hindrichs: They should have rented apartments and cars that should serve to prepare a terrorist attack. The evidence is overwhelming. Has anyone gained access to the businesswoman's computer, stolen her virtual identity and used it for criminal purposes?

The unemployed salesman Wolfgang practices optimism, his friend Günther realism: The situation is shitty! But then zookeeper Günther finds a few hundred thousand Euros from his demented neighbor. The mates take the money but also the care for the old man.

After her mother's death, 15-year old Mia moves in with her aunt, the actress Cleo, who lives with her son Fritzi in a shared apartment in Berlin. Mia lingers for stability and attention but in between Cleo's rehearsals at the theatre and her relationally disturbed housemate Elisa, she finds herself in a world of adults who themselves seem to be unable to cope with life.

Four cigarette-smoking, alcohol-drinking, troublesome adolescents wander between the concrete skyscrapers of downtrodden West-German suburbia. These uncouth youths are surprisingly not boys but girls with attitude, quick-tempers and foul-mouths, who violently vent their scorn on any unfortunate soul who gets in their way.

Five "older" actresses vying for the same role decide to walk out on their audition. They end up on a road trip full of adventures and revelations.

Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.

Not knowing anything about love, Felix has become used to a 3months relationship cycle after which he is left in grief and misery on a regular basis. It doesn't affect him at length, knowing that he has his flatmates Moritz, Jan and his sister Regina to rely on. When Jan decides to move together with his bride to be and Regina cancels their long planned holiday Felix finds himself alone. Moritz of all people who's in constant trouble with his girlfriend Leandra wants to help Felix to find the right one: uncomplicated, forgiving and independent. The first try already has Felix end up in the arms of Maja. Although Maja is done with men and relationships she's OK with a little affair she doesn't tell Felix that she has a 7 year old boy at home. Against Moritz's strong advice Felix falls in love head over heels. But when he hears about Maja's son Paul he panicks. Only Paul knows his mom and her new boyfriend are made for each other...

Anyone can hold a mini-DV camera. Anyone can get 99 euros in credit. And everyone has already written a five-minute story in school. So everyone is actually prepared to make a 99euro-film. but "99euro-films" is more. It is the proof that German films can also be wild, new, modern, funny, political and entertaining. And all that in 80 minutes. 12 young German filmmakers come together, inspire exciting young actors and go: have an idea and simply film it. Just do it and be independent.