When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.
The story of a German singer named Willie who while working in Switzerland falls in love with a Jewish composer named Robert whose family is helping people to flee from the Nazis. Robert’s family is skeptical of Willie, thinking she could be a Nazi as she becomes famous for singing the song “Lili Marleen”.
Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
Despite their social differences Luise, called Pünktchen, a girl from rich parentage befriends Anton, a boy who has to earn his own money in order to afford life for his sick mother and himself. Together they undergo different adventures, even preventing a theft in Pünktchens home
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
It's double trouble when fate and an ill-executed diamond robbery throw Mel and Franny together in a race and chase against time.
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.
When Scott learns that his longtime cyber-buddy from Berlin is a gorgeous young woman, he and his friends embark on a trip across Europe.
Flying at 40,000 feet in a state-of-the art aircraft that she helped design, Kyle Pratt's 6-year-old daughter Julia vanishes without a trace. Or did she? No one on the plane believes Julia was ever onboard. And now Kyle, desperate and alone, can only count on her own wits to unravel the mystery and save her daughter.
The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.
Leroy räumt auf
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.
One day in Europe shows stories set in four European countries. All of them involve thievery in some way or the other. The protagonists are strangers in the respective country. For none of them their stay turns out as planned.
Ben is a young editor for a famous german music magazine in the mid 90's. His life is falling apart after his girlfriend breaks up with him. From now on he decides to go solo...
A small-town girl goes to the Berlinale.
Der Eiserne Gustav
The drama of a youthful triangle among gang leader Freddy, his brother Jan, and bad girl Cissy, in one of the first considerations of juvenile delinquency in post-war West Germany.