1779. Eight-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, called "Louis", is already known as a musical prodigy. He learns to go his own way - much to the dismay of the people around him. Some years later, he meets Mozart during times of political upheaval. The unconventional genius and French Revolution are sparking a fire in Louis' heart; he doesn't want to serve a master - only the arts. Facing times of family tragedies and unrequited love, he almost gives up. However, Louis makes it to Vienna to study under Haydn in 1792, and the rest is history. Who was this man, whose music has since touched countless hearts and minds? At the end of his life, the master is isolated by loss of loved ones and hearing. Surely though, he was way ahead of his times.
Martina and her partner Ralf, who run a restaurant together in Cologne, enjoy their holiday in Brittany - until one day Ralf does not return from a sailing trip. The Breton police believe in a sailing accident and make Martina little hope that her friend has survived. But Martina does not want to accept Ralf's death and begins a desperate search on the coast of Brittany. However, when this remains in vain, Martina returns to Germany.
Hans Scharoun has built houses which show not only structural substance and aesthetic forms but also how human beings should live in buildings. This depiction can only be imaginary - like reading invisible writing on walls. Bitomsky's film looks at several of Scharoun's buildings.
In Essen, four ordinary teenage Death Metal fanatics are looking for the best way to kill time. There are girls, cigarettes, drive-ins and petty larceny but nothing moves the needle.
Barrage and Bunker is an essay film about the (narrative) space imagined by fiction films. Reflections and associations about movement in space are the basis of every kind of story-telling. The film is sometimes referred to as part of Bitomsky's Cinema Trilogy. Sequences from over 20 movies are quoted and commented on by a team of three "researchers" (Bitomsky, Petzold, Tanner) in a sort of laboratory. TV-monitors, production stills and screenshots are used as well as quotations from books. A long night's work.
On the run from her criminal Italian husband, a young French woman meets a German lover in West Berlin who offers her shelter but who also gets entangled in her threatened life ever deeper.
