Peter Thomsen

A film using the famous stop-motion technique well known from the Sandmännchen. It's based on a Sorbic tale of young Hanka who lives in a village. She is very beautiful and does not work. Secretly in love with Jan, she turns down all other men trying to marry her. Jan, however, is poor, so she turns him down. Jan asks the Water Spirit for help. The spirit proposes to Jana but then shows her that Jan is the right guy for her.

Two men want to escape the hustle and bustle of Christmas in the city and travel to the countryside. However, it's not easy to find accommodation on the spur of the moment. And so they end up in a rather spartan hostel…

It is 1944 and Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels narrowly escapes an assassination attempt on the way to Obersalzberg. It is whispered to him that his rival Heinrich Himmler is the mastermind and that he has also hidden a double of the propaganda minister. Goebbels sets off immediately. He meets his double, Harry Geduldig, in a mysterious fortress. There is a mix-up. The real Goebbels remains a prisoner in the fortress, while the fake one deceives the guards and escorts and frees his great love Grete Zipfel. At a party meeting in Nuremberg, the people cheer him on. But then the journey takes him into the lion's den: on the Obersalzberg he meets Hitler and finally "his" wife Magda. Harry risks everything to save Grete.

Edith and Wolfgang have led a fairly harmonious family life for many years, together with their son Danilo. Edith has long since got over Wolfgang's infidelity twelve years ago, which resulted in a daughter. Every now and then he visits 12-year-old Sandra, simply fulfilling his fatherly duties. But suddenly the girl appears at the door.

Martina and Jürgen are lovers in the GDR. She is studying economics in Leipzig, he is preparing for his master's examination as a violin maker in Altneukirchen in Vogtland. While Martina deals with problems of modern science and technology in her thesis, Jürgen is committed to the traditions of instrument making. This leads to friction and strains the relationship. And when Martina meets her former childhood friend Peter Struck in Altneukirchen, the center of musical instrument making in the GDR, who works here as a physicist at the research institute, jealousy also comes into play.

1949. Grafenberg in Brandenburg shortly before the foundation of the GDR. Here lives Michel Hollmann and works in roadmaking. His purpose in life are his wife Lotte and the two children Gerda and Heinz, for whom he is reconstructing a summerhouse into a “nest”. In Grafenberg, his siblings are living as well: His brother Karl, the mayor, and sister-in-law Edith, who works in a textile factory, with their son Jürgen. Edeltraut, his sister, has married the lamp fabricant Berthold Bennert and leads a well-off life. They as well have a son: Harald. Part of the family are further sister Hanna and brother-in-law Hermann, who is a fisherman on one of the local lakes and conducts a tenacious private war against old Stegewald and his presumptive prince-electoral rights. They are living their lives with their large and small conflicts, with different intentions, and yet remain connected always.

Die Wache