Berlin, the vibrant life. Only cashier Emma feels really lonely. There is nothing wrong with her, she just goes underground in the big city. Her desire to meet people has brought Emma to a strange idea: she lets go in the supermarket purses of customers and later presents herself as a hospitable finder, who invites you to pick up at the laid table. Unfortunately, the visit remains short. Only the shrewd homeless August who sees through her starts to get interested in Emma.
Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?
Berlin 36 is a 2009 German film telling the fate of Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was replaced by the Nazi regime by an athlete later discovered to be a man. The film is based on a true story and was released in Germany on September 10, 2009. Reporters at Der Spiegel challenged the historical basis for many of the events in the film, pointing to arrest records and medical examinations indicating German authorities did not learn Dora Ratjen was male until 1938.
For Jules and Mia time seems to be standing still. Again and again they are trying to reinvent themselves and escape the still image, which keeps them hostage. But as soon as they dive into denial and seem to get hold of a glimpse of intimacy, reality catches up with them and throws them back onto their self-imposed struggle. "Oysters Without a Shell" is the semi-fictional portrait of two women, their dreams and fears, their dysfunctional generation, and Berlin, the city they live in that has — just like them — not found its identity yet.
