Steffie Spira

When East Germany ceases to be separate from its western half, one would think that things would be better for the couple in this movie who have been plagued by sexual and political harassment of the most virulent kind, but , they are completely unprepared to cope with the swift changes that are transforming their familiar yet desperately unhappy world. In the story, Heinz is a laborer in the cooperative apple orchards of an East German village and has married his sweetheart Lena. She works to take care of the sickly wife of the co-op's manager and also must cope with the sexual attentions of the perfidious man. One day, after discovering this state of affairs, Heinz blows up and assaults his wife's harasser, which only serves to land him in jail. While in prison, the state secret police (the Stasi) get him to help them entrap the co-op manager, whom they believe is going to try to defect.

The story of the goose princess and her faithful horse Falada.

The year 1933: Successful actress Maria Rheine is in love with her Jewish colleague Mark Löwenthal. When the Nazis implement the racist Nuremberg Laws, their relationship is severely endangered. Defiant Maria decides to stay together with Mark and ends her promising career: She assumes a Jewish identity and continues to work under the name Manja Löwenthal. She and Mark perform at the Jewish Theatre in Berlin, until they become victims of an intrigue: Their colleague Judith, who has a crush on Mark, denounces them to the secret police.

In the GDR, purchasing a car was such a difficult process that many families applied for one years in advance. For example, Gisela secretly orders a Wartburg model after the birth of her first child. By the time the vehicle is ready, her daughter is a teenager, and Gisela's husband, who actually prefers walking, has already bought a second Wartburg from a friend in financial trouble. As a result, the couple decides to sign up for driving school together.

For five years Rogelio, a Chilean exile, has been in the GDR, where he works as a lighting technician at a theater. Though his colleagues try to make him feel welcome, he feels lonely and isolated.

The furniture mover Stefan is on the verge of serving his time in the military. He has always been a guy with distinctive civil courage who cannot stand injustice. Now he has ten days left in which he plans to make a lot of decisions, not least the decision with which woman he wants to spend his life. Stefan is picky, however, and none of them seems good enough for him.

The criminalist Hannes Bergemann tries to blackmail the city where he spent his youth. After many years returning to the familiar places of his childhood, he hopes to meet again his old friends, especially Fred, Helmuth and Richard, with whom he had a close childhood friendship. When confronted with a murder shortly after his arrival and given the task of investigating it, he has the painful experience that his friends are involved in the case.

After a hot and steamy company party, Sibylle and Harald, both in their late thirties, spend the night together. He is a widower with two sons, with the younger son just entering school. She is single and relatively satisfied in her current relationship with a married colleague. When they meet again later, they resolve to enter into a strictly intellectual relationship.

Things are not going well for Klaus Wensloff. It is the last year of World War II. At school the boy hears Nazi propaganda, while at home his mother tells him Bible stories and his father explain the world revolution.

Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the very next day. The 24 hours before the planned surgery puts her under enormous psychological pressure and she begins to reevaluate her life. With heightened awareness of matters of everyday life, she realizes that what she previously considered meaningful, was actually void of any real meaning.

Ten years old Ernst and his father Alfons are traveling to the family event on their bikes.

Ten-year-old Brigitte spends holiday with her father Peter on the Baltic Sea and everything is perfect until they meet strange and beautiful woman on the beach.

A story about Ulrike, a ten year old girl who is looking for a new father with energy and determination.

August 1961. The former Foreign Legionnaire, King, has collected a gang of hooligans, with whom he creates mischief in the GDR. After some careless work on a construction site, an event during which two people lose their lives, they move to a campsite on the Baltic Sea. With sputtering mopeds, loud radios, and occasional outbursts, the gang makes the vacationers' lives living hell. Unfortunately for them, Lieutenant Czernik discovers the connection between them and the accident at the construction site. To stop them from fleeing to West Berlin, Lieutenant Czernik and the police need to arrest them, one at a time, with King as the last.

Hated by her jealous and bloodthirsty stepmother, Snow White flees a murder attempt and seeks shelter in the woods with seven kindly dwarfs. Feeling she is safe from harm, Snow White welcomes the disguised queen into her home...with fatal consequences.

A young soldier discovers three chests of copper, silver and gold and an old tinder-box in the hollow of an old oak tree. He is now rich. But he squanders the money until it is all gone. All he has left is the old tinder-box. He uses it to light a small pipe and three large dogs come to his rescue. Based on the fairy-tale by Hans Christian Anderson.

This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal of the Social Democrats and fissures in the working class, Thälmann calls on his fellow soldiers to put down their weapons and unite with the workers in the communist struggle at home. Thälmann’s qualms about which side he is fighting on continue, but when the local police attempt to prevent a shipment of provisions and supplies from reaching the people in Petrograd, he intervenes and the ship is unloaded. With this moment of clarity, Thälmann continues to follow his political convictions and joins the workers at the Hamburg uprising in October 1923.

A novelty in German post-war history: a young woman (Eva Rimski) becomes mayor in a village. She is efficient and enjoys respect, but soon enough two villagers disagree with her work. In her predecessor, a prominent farmer (Arno Paulsen), she has a bitter enemy. But even her boyhood friend (Reinhard Kolldehoff), who wants to marry her as he returns home from captivity, can not accept that his future wife holds such an office.

This is the directorial debut of Artur Pohl and tells the story of war refugees as they try to settle in a small town in Germany.