The Meds (1995)

Volker Koepp revisits Zehdenick and Grüneberg, East Germany. People are struggling with the new political and economical conditions shortly before the German Reunification.

In late 1990 times are changing in Zehdenick, Brandenburg: Russian troops are leaving, the German Reunification brings euphoria and new hope, but unemployment rises steadily.

A tragi-comedy telling the story of the adventures of Robin, Anna, Jost and Leo - the meds - who want to be anything but healthy, happy and mediocre. They all live in a large city in West-Germany and are "Westies" to the core. Precocious, disillusioned, morally eroded, politically bored and sexually sated. Always on the run from the next compromise, they are big kids caught up in their mid-twenties crisis. One day in the midst of all this depression the suspicion arises that one of them is in fact a closet "Eastie", a liar and betrayer, an undercover agent, a neo-Nazi or at least a Stalinist...

Outside Time is the second feature film of Andreas Kleinert, a German director who grew up in the GDR and who started making films at the time of the fall of the Wall. The film is set in a small town somewhere in Brandenburg, a place which is rapidly falling "outside time"; since it cannot keep pace with the changes brought about by unification and the transformation of the former GDR. The Russian troops stationed there have withdrawn and their barracks have turned into rat-infested ruins; the intercity trains do not stop there any more and even the regional railway link to Berlin is going to be suspended. Most young people are leaving. When Sophie introduces her lover to her mother and her brother, Sergej becomes embroiled in the incestuous tensions underlying the relationship between Sophie, her brother, Georg, and her mother. The arrival of the Russian implodes the claustrophobic sham existence that held this dysfunctional family together.

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

In reunified Berlin, a city guide from the Eastern part of the city offers tours for West Berliners and grapples with his pre and post "Wende" identity.

In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.

The vege­ta­bles come from the garden behind the house, the fish comes out of a can, and money for bread is earned at the factory. It’s because of this money that they came here. Women from Turkey stand side-by-side with women form Meck­len­burg at the conveyor belt of a fish-proces­sing factory in Lübeck. Their hands are stained brown, the pungent smell of fish clings to them, and their arms and backs ache. If these jobs were done by men, machines would have been invented long ago to replace them. But female labour is cheap and the women do not complain. They have learned to work – and therein lies the source of their pride. (Source: https://www.artechock.de/film/text/filminfo/g/ge/gefubr.htm)