Alexander Khuon

Isn’t the trajectory of a shared life determined in advance? Get married, have kids, be like everyone else… According to Dietrich Brüggemann, who competed in Vary six years ago, 30-somethings conceivably have it all, yet they fail in their attempts to achieve their set ideals. Nö delivers a critique of contemporary values, while also highlighting the struggle to find and nurture love.

1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.

It's Lara's 60th birthday, and she has every reason to celebrate: this evening, her son Viktor will be giving the most important piano concert of his career. Lara was, after all, the one who'd mapped out and driven his musical career. Yet Viktor has been unreachable for weeks and nothing indicates that Lara will be welcome at his debut performance. Without further ado, she buys up all the remaining tickets and hands them out to everyone she meets. The more Lara strives to make the evening successful, however, the more events get out of control.

Teresa und Patricia are best friends. Despite the big differences between date-experienced Teresa and romantically predisposed single-mother Patricia, they have one thing in common: they have enough of bad dates and are sick of stupid dudes, bad surprises and broken hearts. When Teresa meets the neurotic programmer Anton, who is completely inexperienced in the field of romance, they come up with a genius business idea: together with the womanizer and start-up founder Paul, they develop an app with which potential dates can be categorized. In this manner, users can paint a picture of what they're getting themselves into. However, quite quickly they find out that people can't be easily fit into boxes and that matters of the heart shouldn't be left to an algorithm...

A German communist wrongly accused and sent to a labour camp has to keep her past life hidden for the sake of her and her family’s freedom.

Drama about two good friends, who discover their love on a holiday together, which turns their old life upside down.

Divorced, widowed or long-term single: The participants of Flirtkurs 50plus the adult education center feel not yet old, but lonely. From the course, they hope for professional support for their attempts to find a new partner. But what trainer Jan trains with Julia, Frieda, Gila, and Britta, Friedrich, Heinz, and Ulf turns out to be far too mechanical for the individual needs and stories of the students. The course threatens to fail. But then the participants fire the coach and take the initiative themselves.

An African-German Author loses his memory and is used by a modern National Socialist Party as promotion-figure for more political power over Germany.

During a stormy night of grave political crisis, an expert interpreter suffers a nervous breakdown. Young diplomat Konrad Gelb is recruited to step in and interpret between the two conflicting superpower leaders, who seem to hold the fate of humanity in their hands - an absurd responsibility, which by extension rests on the shoulders of the young interpreter. He must balance the oversized egos in the room and maneuver the world's destiny to either peaceful resolution or total annihilation.

A sperm donor becomes impotent - and so he searches for the woman, who got his sperm, to become a father after all...

Eleven moving dates, eight friends: Philipp, Wiebke, Jessica, Maria, Swantje, Michael, Thomas, Dina – all in their twenties and mutually lonesome. And always searching: For a new city, a new job, an own apartment, a new, or even an old love. The search is never-ending, and so they repeatedly find themselves at a ritual gathering: someone moving. Boxes are shifted from one side of Berlin to the other, or the length and breadth of Germany, from one abode to the next as one life is exchanged for another. In 3 ZIMMER/KÜCHE/BAD, director Dietrich Brüggemann portrays existences in which relationships, social networks and backdrops are in a constant state of flux; where best friends are the only, and therefore the most valuable constant. Humorous sketches of the self-conception of a generation for whom moving has become the symbol of a life on the go.

Life, death, and yet we know nothing.

David, a waiter, finds an unpublished manuscript in a dresser drawer. To impress a girl, he claims to be the author. When the novel becomes a best-seller, the real author introduces himself and begins to take over David's life.

The film tells the early life story of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who was born in Wloclawek, Poland in 1920. During the Third Reich, the family was in great danger. Nevertheless, he returned to Germany with his wife.

Thirteen German directors present short films exploring the state of their country.