Jenny Gröllmann

It all starts with a bang. The car breaks through the crash barrier and falls off the bridge. The lights go out. After that, he is not able to see anymore. His optic nerve is severed, from now on the young stage-director Jakob is blind. His life will change and nothing will ever be the same. Jakob cannot handle the idea of never being able to see again and screams at the only woman who is able and willing to help him, Lily. A rehabilitation teacher, she helps the blind deal with the darkness. Lily has been living with it since birth, she too is blind.

Jutta and Eric were once lovers and aspiring chefs in the Spree Forest region of East Germany. Too prone too brilliant but risky improvisation, Jutta fell into obscurity; Eric defected to the West and became famous. Now he has returned to enlist her aid of crucial cooking contest - does this portend rekindled romance or cynical exploitation?

The homosexual journalist Kleinschmidt, who wrote for a trendy newspaper, is murdered in Berlin. During her investigation, the young, ambitious Ann-Christin Hagen quickly reached the limits of her abilities in her first case as chief inspector. That's why she persuades her boss, Rotter, to smuggle her friend and colleague Laszlo into the gay community as an undercover agent ...

Trickster of love Constantin is a perfect gentleman with impeccable manners. He is charming, well-educated, loving and shows good taste in women: Pretty Isabelle possesses as much class as money. Suddenly, though, young urban cowboy Hendrik appears on the scene. He blackmails Constantin because he knows something about Constantin's past, something Isabelle must never learn of. Hendrik wants money for his silence... more money than Constantin has. Constantin offers to teach him what he knows best instead: the art of catching yourself a millionaire dame. Soon, Hendrik is ready for his masterpiece - seducing a beautiful, rich lady. When he has made his choice, the situation turns dangerous for Constantin...

This tragic love story relates ten decisive years in the life of the great Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin, played by a young Ulrich Mühe.

Twelve-year-old Isabel and her mother, who was a famous political singer, had to escape Chile after the 1973 military coup. Isabel’s father stayed behind fighting in the underground. For six years, they have lived in a new apartment building in East Berlin. At first, the neighbors made an effort to welcome them, but later became more distant. Isabel does not feel at home in the strange country. Not even her friendship to Philip, the neighbors’ son, can change her mind. Almost every day, Isabel sits on the stairs waiting for a letter from her father, from whom she has not heard for many years.

A communist is released from prison in 1935 Hamburg. He tries to link up with the Party again, but is unsure as to who he can trust, and has difficulty adjusting to life in Nazi Germany.

1934, Germany. The ten-year-old Peter lives in a small town with his parents. His father, an underground Communist, is arrested. In the summer vacation the kids from the neighbourhood fight in two teams, which prevail in turns. One team, led by Ewald, imitates the Nazis, while the other, headed by Fritz, follows his Communist father's example.

When Dr. Schmith's proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children's hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. Moreover, he falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina. Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly...

Hoffi is starting fresh after his release from prison. He travels with his brother to different construction sites in search of Urban, an acquaintance and role model he met during a brief hospital stay. Along the way, Hoffi meets Gila, who sees beyond his past in prison. Despite disapproval from her family, Gila decides to build a relationship and future with Hoffi, but Hoffi initially hesitates at this responsibility. It takes the encouragement of his workers’ brigade for Hoffi to realize his mistake and give his relationship with Gila a chance.

Film by Ralf Kirsten.

Gregor is a young soldier entering Germany with the victorious Soviet troops at the end of WWII. But he is also the child of left-wing Germans who fled from Hitler and spent the war in the Soviet Union. As a result, his return to Germany is ambivalent; he finds he is a stranger in his own land. As they enter Germany, Gregor begins to realize that he is different from all his comrades in arms, for this defeated land is his home country, the Germans he meets are his compatriots. He is a victor, but also one of the vanquished. He attempts to understand the Germans he meets along his way, but he is a 19-year-old: inquisitive, occasionally uncomprehending and repeatedly dismayed by the atrocities and lies he encounters.

Four directors - four styles - four episodes, all relating the events of a single night which has entered the history books: August 12-13, 1961. There are thousands of complex narratives connected with the frontier drawn through the middle of Berlin, and each episode relates the story of a difficult decision made on that night...