Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness.
A henpecked housewife ekes out a meager existence, surrounded by a host of colorful characters: her ungrateful husband, her delinquent sons, her headstrong mother-in-law, and her sex worker neighbor, among others.
After his mother's death, 17-year-old Sven moves in with his dad Achim, a taxi driver, who had divorced his mother several years earlier. It is not easy for Achim to get used to an adolescent around the house, especially since Sven hardly speaks to him. But Sven does well in school, and Achim hopes that time will bring them closer together. It is Achim's girlfriend Julia who first senses that something is wrong with Sven. Why, she wonders, does he always hang around with young boys? Why does not he have any friends his own age? She suspects that he is gay. The truth, however, is somewhat more nuanced - and chilling: Sven has pedophile tendencies. Proof is soon found on videos that shock and sicken Achim. Sven himself is shattered and regrets his actions. Julia suggests therapy, but Achim is convinced that he and Sven can handle this together. But he is wrong. Though Sven practically begs his father to lock him up in his room, Achim has confidence in his son.
A desperate husband chases a bus full of beautiful women headed for Paris, France.
Ali and Zuhal take their first step out of the orphanage into this big world committing a crime. It becomes impossible for them to live amongst people now, and the forest they take shelter in becomes a desert island for them. A boy and a girl that were thrown out of the civilized world would live the entire human story from scratch.
On Christmas Eve, Francesca sets out for Rotterdam in order to find her little sister, who has run off with her musician boyfriend. On the way, she picks up Gerlinde, a heartbroken older woman at the end of her rope.
A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.
Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.
In Beirut 1986, during the Lebanese civil war a Korean diplomat is taken hostage without a trace. Two years pass and long forgotten, a young diplomat Min-jun receives a phone call proving that the hostage is still alive. With the given mission, Min-jun is sent to Beirut to save the hostage with a bag of ransom money.
A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.
A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.
An anthology of 5 different cab drivers in 5 American and European cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
Sergio driving a taxi in a white Naples overflowing sadness and garbage. Pouring rain leads her clients through the city trying to process the death of his brother, who started ten years earlier for Tibet and never returned. A pop singer, a recycler of fragments of life, a radio announcer, an old uncle, alternate seats on its bearing, each in its own way, a trace of his brother loved. Stubborn not to go over and get lost in an endless race, Sergio is overwhelmed by memories and the music produced in pairs with Alfredo, which in Buddhism and in its foundations had found the strength to cope with the disease. Those notes that he believed buried and laid to always return overbearing and demanding a soundboard that resonate and express his being sound. Putting his hand on the piano, Sergio Alfredo feel again, giving the past with the present and realizing itself in the feeling.
When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.
Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.
On her first night as a dockside dancer, Mary Foster loses her job when she tries to fend of the advances of first mate Groder. On the street and being pursued by a Policeman who thinks she is a prostitute, Mary seeks shelter on an old freighter. She is soon discovered by second mate Tommy and they quickly fall in love, but with first mate Groder lurking around will their lives work out in the end?
A man planning to commit suicide hires a taxi driver to take him to his jumping-off point.
Various stories of how crack cocaine has infiltrated the inner-city streets. Based on Buddy Giovinazzo's novel "Life is Hot in Cracktown".
An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
The community reels after an incident on a suburban train. A young cop, beset with doubt and afflicted with tinnitus, is pitched into the chaos that follows this tragic event. He struggles to clear the noises in his head while all around him deal with the after burn of the crime.