After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.
At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.
A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.
In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.
After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
A post-WW2 story about the village largely involved in wine-making business. The peasants who claimed possessions of lands, woods, and churches after communist party seized the power hold a party where a member of so-called reactionary forces (kulaks, clergy and Axis collaborators) tries to break in and stop it.
Following World War II in peacetime Scotland, brigade headquarters replaces commanding officer Major Jock Sinclair, a boisterous battalion leader, with the strict, temperamental Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow. Resentful toward his replacement, Sinclair undermines Barrow's authority and damages his successor's reputation among the soldiers. Barrow faces an uphill battle in regaining the discipline and respect of his battalion.
Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.
A former prisoner of war, Frank Enley is hailed as a hero in his California town. However, Frank has a shameful secret that comes back to haunt him when fellow survivor Joe Parkson emerges, intent on making Frank pay for his past deeds.
A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.
A Holocaust survivor moves to Israel and experiences difficulty adjusting to life.
What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved, and become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days coldly collecting debts. Even her best friends, fellow Geisha Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamour of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have disappointing children. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves less than satisfactory.
Stuck in a mining town near Vladivostok in 1947 amongst Soviet exiles and Japanese POWs (Japanese prisoners remained in Siberia for years after the war had ended), the kids have to come up with something to keep them busy. Two friends, Valerka and Galia, play some peculiar, very dangerous games of their own amid the man-made wasteland of Suchan.
Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.
Dr. Parsa and his daughter, Bahar, are on the way to Khoramshahr to set up a specialized hospital there. It seems their cold relationship is related to this journey. Reaching there, Bahar finds a diary of a girl at her age called Maryam which was written in the same day, 30 years ago; 2 days before the first day of schools, and also the start of Iran-Iraq war! The girlish joy that Maryam describes in the first pages of the diary, the sudden invasion of enemies to their town, and finally her love story which is mentioned in the diary, motivates Bahar to continue reading it. Maryam was in love with a young intern who was working in the town's only clinic. Now Bahar thinks that the intern could be his father.
Lifelong hard work for the count makes the servant Anton a cripple. Everybody calls him Crooked Anton. When, after the end of the war, the land of the count gets divided amongst the farmers, Anton receives a piece and hopes to be able to work freely. But an old debt and intrigue keep Anton and his family from finding peace. The farmers of the village begin to discover their own power when Annegret, Anton's daughter, leaves. Is a new beginning possible for Anton? This film paints an impressive panorama of the development of a minor village in Mecklenburg from the end of the war to the uprising of 17 June 1953.
A woman struggles to raise her young son on her own in postwar Japan, finding companionship with a kind laborer while still hoping for the return of her missing husband.