Eberhard Esche

Hans Fallada tells in his published after the war novel "The drinker" the story of the agricultural wholesaler Erwin Sommer, who flees from his narrow bourgeois relations under the burdens of the new times in the kingdom of the king alcohol, whose liberty and independence promises prove a lie - the only truth of the alcohol. On behalf of the WDR television play Ulrich Plenzdorf has adapted Fallada's 1944/45 novel for a film adaptation by Tom Toelle with Harald Juhnke in the main role of Erwin Sommer.

On a forest road in the Brandenburg March, village teacher Potsch accidentally encounters the distinguished Professor Menzel, who got stuck there in his car. In the conversation that ensues, Menzel and Pötsch quickly discover that they both are great admirers of the early 19th-century writer Max von Schwedenow who was born in the area.

With excerpts from Goethe's diary, sketches and engravings, this film follows Goethe's Italian Journey through Rome, Naples and Pompeii.

In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined and his calls for justice go unanswered, Levin leaves town.

The evil and powerful King Magus brutally subjugates the people of his kingdom. Anyone who does not want to submit is turned into an animal and locked in a cage. Magus kidnaps the girl Hanna, whom he wants to marry. But Hanna refuses, and her lover, the shepherd Elias, goes to the castle to free her. He learns from Magus' servant Pravos that a mirror gives the king magic power and immortality and that he can only be defeated by water from the Moon Lake. Elijah sets out on his journey to the Moon Lake. Will he withstand the dangers and finally achieve victory over the king? Wrid he be able to free Hanna and the whole kingdom?

The former athlete Barbara follows her husband to the province and attempts to masters her new life, even after her separation from him.

East German documentary short about Somalia in 1976.

Vienna, 1813-1819: Beethoven (played by Donatas Banionis) is at the peak of his fame. Orchestras all over the world play his music, but he lives modestly and is dependent upon private patrons. Nagged by his patronizing brothers, spied upon by officials for his republican beliefs and faced by his progressive hearing loss, the composer becomes more and more isolated. Seeman’s poetic film explores the joys, heartbreak and artistic spirit of the great composer as he works on his Ninth Symphony.

In medieval Germany, poor and witty Till Eulenspiegel fools and cheats citizens, churchmen, and landlords. Although in most cases he uses his wit for personal well-being, he often helps the poor and weak. Eventually, he gains an influential but also dangerous position as royal fool at the court of the emperor.

The film describes the activity of an ABV of the People's Police in its section in East Berlin. A mixture of “positive” characters from the beginning, the extensively staged “owl”, who is introduced as a criminal and over the course of time, especially due to the influence of the ABV, develops into a good citizen, and incorrigible characters, with whom the ABV fails with its extensive attempts at rehabilitation and who are arrested after having committed again offenses.

Uwe Polzin, a highly talented biologist publicly stands the defence of his doctorate and this crucial day prompts him to look back on his life so far. These reminiscences are not altogether positive and he and his family still face almost unsolvable problems. For; while Ruth, Uwe's sister, consciously goes without family life and private happiness in order to devote herself fully to her vocation as a doctor; he tries to reconcile career and family. He has found in Alla, his wife - an interpreter - not only a truly loving partner but also someone who shares his basic view of life. Still, their marriage is undergoing a crisis. Uwe's job has become so demanding that he expects her to cope with a great deal of domestic problems. Alla senses that her husband is exploiting her love towards him and that he expects her only to make sacrifices for him. This is why she is contemplating divorce.

Helmut Kamp, the construction brigade leader, a man no longer young, life immediately confronted several difficult and woeful problems. The birth of a son, the tragic death of his wife, the relationship of his daughter Ingrid with Dr. Beißert coincided with the need to move to an uninhabited area where a nuclear power plant will be built. Kamp, Ingrid and the members of the friendly brigade decide to act as the duty and the feeling of partnership prompts them, and gradually they all become participants in the new construction...

Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow worked for the railways his entire working life. He took up service at the small station of Luege 34 years ago. Now, the line is to be electrified and Platow, who cannot cope with the new technology, has to work on a secondary local line. Georg, his son, a railway worker as well, is to attend a training course, but Georg refuses to go. Then his father comes to a surprising and highly unusual decision. He pretends to be Georg Platow, making himself twenty years younger than he really is and registers for the course.

Adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella for East German television, produced in 1965/66, not shown until 1972.

East German film about the history of Red Orchestra, a real life German pro-Soviet spy ring created after the rise of Hitler that turned into a resistance movement led by a leftist Nazi officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Arvid Harnack.

A farmer receives land from the king and discovers a buried golden mortar. He decides to give it to the king out of gratitude, but his clever daughter warns him that the king will surely want him to bring a corresponding pestle as well. When the king throws the farmer into jail for fraud, he bemoans the fact that he did not listen to his daughter.

Four directors - four styles - four episodes, all relating the events of a single night which has entered the history books: August 12-13, 1961. There are thousands of complex narratives connected with the frontier drawn through the middle of Berlin, and each episode relates the story of a difficult decision made on that night...

Bad planning and shortages prevail on an East German construction site. Foreman Hannes Balla uses unconventional methods to overcome the problems. New Socialist Unity Party secretary Werner Horrath is charged with bringing the rough-and-ready builder crew into line. The task seems doomed to fail as the two men compete for the affections of young engineer Kati Klee. But when she gets pregnant by married man Horrath, he is in danger of being expelled from the party, and Balla takes his side...

After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him …

The film chronicles the last ten years in the life of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938).

The "Concordia" trading company in Würzburg is a secret headquarters of the MID, a secret service agency of the US Army. For years, espionage, sabotage, and diversion operations originated from here in order to undermine the Socialist Republic of Germany. A favorable moment for a military attack approaches and plans are developed. These plans are placed in the hands of Major Collins, who keeps them in a safe. Hansen has worked for him for many years, but also for the Stasi as a double agent. Security Chief Colonel Rock knows there is a leak, but Hansen has passed every test thrown at him. He is trying to deal with his current assignment: acquiring the plans so they can be made public. His mission is to get them out of the safe and into the GDR without getting caught.

At the beginning of the 1960s, a German turns up on behalf of the NATO in the British village of Rocksmouth. NATO wants to establish a naval base in Rocksmouth, but first, the German envoy has to salvage an old ship wreck. In 1942, the "Princess of India" was supposed to bring children to safety in Canada but was sunk by a German submarine at departure. 58 people were killed, most of them children.