Marie-Paule von Roesgen

Daniel is a former police officer turned debt collector. Now in his late fifties, he goes about his "dirty job" without emotion or sympathy. One winter's day, he stops at a roadside parking lot and is approached by Laura, an 18-year-old young woman who asks him to drive her home. He accepts, and on the way, she offers him "her services" in exchange for money. Daniel is furious, and throws her out of his car. But his feelings of remorse and the violence of his reaction lead him to turn around and retrace his steps, only to discover that Laura has disappeared...

Berlín, siglo XIX, Romanticismo. El joven poeta trágico Heinrich aspira a vencer el carácter ineluctable de la muerte gracias al amor. Por esta razón intenta convencer a su prima Marie de que si se suicidan juntos conseguirán eludir el destino. El escepticismo y la falta de sensibilidad de Marie deprime a Heinrich. Sin embargo, Henriette, una joven casada, cuando se entera de que padece una enfermedad incurable, se muestra dispuesta a aceptar la propuesta del poeta. Relato libremente inspirado en el suicidio de Heinrich von Kleist, en 1811.

Año 1921. F.W. Murnau está rodando Nosferatu en la Europa del Este. El director está decidido a hacer la película más auténtica jamás vista. Para este fin Murnau ha contratado a un vampiro auténtico, Max Schreck como protagonista. Explica el peculiar comportamiento de Schreck diciendo a su equipo que es el no va más de la nueva generación: el actor con método, formado por el mismísimo Stanislavsky. Si Schreck realiza la actuación que Murnau busca tan desesperadamente y controla hasta el final de la producción sus necesidades más indecorosas, el premio de Schreck será el sabroso cuello de la estrella de la película, Greta.

For most people, a wedding signifies a hopeful beginning, but then, Catherine and Christian aren't most people. She is a spoiled rich girl with an insatiable desire for the low and degraded side of life. Christian is without any resources, inner or outer, and caters to Catherine's every whim, even when she sends him out in the middle of their wedding reception to score some heroin for her. Their wedding is the starting point for their relentless downward spiral into the most brutally senseless lives imaginable, in this stylishly filmed exploration of the dark netherworld of the human spirit.

The title of the film, set in Luxembourg in 1942, during the Nazi occupation, amalgamates the words Schacko (helmet) and chapeau claque (opera hat). The village, in which it is set, has not yet been feeling the effects of the war at this point.

Luxembourg, October 1830. Unrest spreads in the region in the wake of the Belgian Revolution. Fed up with the domination of the Dutch, most of the people want to become Belgian. Those who want an independent Luxembourg are few. Among them a town clerk obstinately refuses to accept the Belgian nationality. Considered as a traitor, he is forced to go into exile. A few years later, in 1839, Luxembourg finally becomes independent.