Gisela Aderhold

A snack bar owner smokes with his Muslim neighbor in the stairwell of their apartment building at night. Her husband is his good friend. They draw closer to one another as the nights go on and look out over the city to the dark satellites, the brutalist concrete buildings on the outskirts of the city - relics of the GDR past. A security guard watches over Objekt 95, a satellite town with a residential complex which many foreigners call home. While on patrol at night, he gets to know a young Ukrainian woman who fled her home country when the war broke out. He wants to protect her, while his friend, the “old security guard”, radios to him from an abandoned Russian barrack night after night. A woman from the train cleaning service drinks in a train station bar after her night shift. There, she meets a hairdresser. The two of them become friends and spend many nights together in the station. Every night, her desire grows even greater for this woman who is exactly as lonely as she is.

In a world in which humans are brought up to be slaughtered, Anton works as a caretaker in a meat factory. As he develops feelings for his protégé 733, he must choose between carrying out his duties and his love for the young man.

Angela Merkel's decision in autumn 2015 to open the borders for refugees split the country - some praised the moral stance, others criticized the surrender of sovereignty. Yet what would appear to be well-planned activity is in reality a policy of muddling along, chance, trial and error. The Driven Ones is a chronicle of the refugee crisis which shows that the political actors are being driven along, crushed between self-imposed constraints and events that have spun out of control.

Happily married to Thomas, her daughter just off to college, Katja teaches math and music at the local elementary school. Her life seems perfect. Until a chance encounter turns her world upside down. The very weekend her family is away, she meets Daniel, an attractive, inquisitive fellow, backpacking through Germany. A travel journalist, just passing through, he camps out on her lawn. They connect. She finds his independent, freewheeling lifestyle fascinating. He tells her of his journeys. He makes her feel alive, reawakens her youthful hopes and dreams. Now old regrets come rushing back. After three exciting days, she is faced with the decision: does she go with him, or does she stay in her own, safe little world?

From her childhood, Nadia felt responsible for her mentally disturbed and recently homeless mother, Irene. For a while Nadia had cut off all contact with Irene and tried to live her life, until Irene suddenly appears drunk at the wedding of her son, Mickey. Nadia sinks back into this quagmire of love and hate, responsibility, guilt and shame. She gathers her strength to find a home for her mother while at the same time she hides from her partner, Ian, the fact that the drunk woman at her brother's wedding was her mother. But no one can oppress Irene, let alone her daughter.

Diagnosis burnout: The successful career woman Toni Lehmstedt can be referred to a psychiatric clinic after a physical breakdown. Urs Egger's free adaptation of the biographical novel of the same name by Miriam Meckel with Grimme award winner Marie Bäumer in the leading role.