In Afghanistan, "batchas" are young male prostitutes who live under the protection of a master in a house where they are trained to dance dressed as girls for a men's audience. Veteran dancer Saman starts worrying when he sees Bijane, the new recruit, who has been chosen to replace him. Despite his jealousy, he must initiate Bijane into the art of the Batcha dancing.
Kelly, Dan and Louis are students at a prestigious business school, destined to become tomorrow's elite. The industrious trio are determined to start putting their education into practise from the off in an attempt to make as much money as they can from their fellow students. Working on the theory that relationships between the sexes can be regulated by market principles, they begin to inflate the popularity of certain individuals artificially, by hiring beautiful and sexy off-campus women as their dates for exclusive and riotous college parties. However their perfect business model soon spirals out of control as their moneymaking scheme takes off in a big way across campus.
A pseudo documentary study of an archetypal German who tries to model his world according to his ideas of law and (sexual) order.
Based on an actual post-war murder in Frankfurt, this standard docudrama by Rudolf Jugert is a serious treatment of the story as compared to the earlier, satirical film The Girl Rosemarie. The history of the case of Rosemarie, a hooker, and how she came to be strangled in her apartment is not completely clear. One of the suspects in the case was first charged, later acquitted, but never really free of an aura of culpability. British actress Belinda Lee plays the title role with her voice dubbed over in German.
The subject of this historical drama is a splintering Berlin in the years of 1948 and 1949. Played against the backdrop of social upheaval, the characters in the drama come to epitomize the best and worst of each pole of the political sphere. A 17-year-old hoodlum by the name of Gladow works hand-in-glove with a local white-collar criminal to rob and pillage every day and night, defying capture. While he and his gang of thugs are terrorizing the people of Berlin, the Soviets are trying to make the blockade of their region of control impermeable. The future casts long shadows over the drama, as Berlin's problems take the shape of times to come.
What To Do In Case of Fire? tells the humorous and touching story of six former creative anarchists who lived as house squatters in Berlin during its heyday in the 80s when Berlin was still an island in the middle of the former eastern Germany. At the end of the 80s they went their separate ways with the exception of Tim and Hotte, who have remained true to their ideals and continue to fight the issues they did as a group. In 2000, with Berlin as Germany's new capital, an event happens forcing the group out of existential reason to reunite and, ultimately, come to grips with the reason they separated 12 years ago.
Berlin am Meer
Brenda sets up a white slave business after escaping from prison. Not a woman who has entered her business comes out alive.
A gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day German with this tale of a black Berlin teen named Leroy who rediscovers his roots after falling for a pretty white girl and meeting her racist family.
Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.
A young teenage single mother (Maggi) struggling to raise her baby daughter (Lucy) finds the weight of responsibility bearing down on her shoulders. Maggy was forced to grow up before her time. Thankfully for Maggi, her mother is always willing to help though Maggy still lives at home with her mother, it's obvious that she longs to gain some independendence. Meeting Gordon at a local club, who is a few years older, makes a living and has his own apartment. One night, after a heated argument with her mother, Maggi makes the decision to move in with Gordon. Though the pair subsequently make a sincere attempt to be good parents.and do what's best for Lucy, they soon find that taking on the responsibilities of adulthood aren't so easy when you've barely moved past childhood yourself.
When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.
Director helmut Dietls and Patric Susskinds illustrate a legendary story of two lovers who cant keep themselves away from death.
From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
An emotionally scarred highway drifter shoots a sadistic trick who rapes her, and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.
Laura and Lucas live temporarily in Berlin and are set to go back to Lisbon together soon. I guess this is how I think about myself too. That I will go back to Lisbon soon. But I often find myself doubting it and becoming a kind of split self. Because now with this crisis and the very controversial austerity IMF program running in Portugal I found most of my friends leaving Lisbon; and family about to mortgage their homes. I wanted to talk about this feeling of separation that I see in my generation, about this state of being in between an apparent solid past and an unknown future, about this identity in transition.
As Tobias, a young director, supposes that his girl-friend Ellen had an affair with his brother Markus, front man of "Hansen", one year ago, he decides to shoot a documentary about the band's next tour. When Ellen joins the project, everybody's emotions boil over, although they are observed all the time.
18-year-old school boy Helmut falls in love with fellow pupil Britta. He starts working for a Peace movement to get to know Britta. Britta, however, suddenly moves to San Francisco to live with her father and whilst there, finds a new boyfriend. Helmut studies, literature and politics in his home town and have a relationship with another girl from his former school, now studying medicine at the same university but they break up after having an affair with her roommate. Helmut begins a lot of short affairs with different women but still searches for his first girl.
Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think...