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- A German stage actor's cult following and popularity after protesting the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
- After a six year journey, the Spaceship Cyrno lands on the planet TEM 4 from where they had received a call for help. Strangely enough, the Temers deny having sent this message. As commander Akala prepares the spaceship to leave they get an invitation from the rich ruler of TEM 4 to be a part of a lush party. Not only do the opulent food and the seductive dancers cloud their minds, but also the drugs mixed into their food manipulate their consciousness. Only navigator Suko was left behind on the spaceship for security reasons and makes an unexpected, terrible discovery.
- Nine-year old George, son of British settlers, is kidnapped by Iroquois and raised by the chief who adopts him. Later he gets the chance to return to his family but refuses because he has discovered that the palefaces are the true savages.
- Eight space cargo-ships disappear without a trace within three days. And the orbit station "Margot" has suddenly fallen silent. The space council is faced with a mystery and the scientist in charge, Maria Scholl, sees no other solution than ordering a total flight stop to this mysterious sector of space. Her colleague, Prof. Tal seems to be suspicious since he knows things before they are even released. A forbidden look into his personal file brings to light that Tal was part of the Eolomea project that never found approval of the commission in charge.
- As a painter in the court of King Carlos IV, Goya - played by the great Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis (The Red Tent, Solaris) - has attained wealth and reputation. He believes in King and Church, yet he is also a Spaniard who dearly loves his people. This contradiction presents him with a dilemma. Based on Lion Feuchtwanger's novel, Goya is one of ten East German films originally shot in 70mm. This release is the director's cut and shows the influence of great filmmakers from Buñuel and Saura, to Eisenstein. Goya was nominated for the Golden Prize at the 1971 Moscow International Film Festival.
- Fall 1989: Jan is almost 16. Caught while trying to escape to West Germany, he is transferred from prison to a juvenile detention center. Here, he meets Jana ... and what starts as a bet, becomes true love. When Jana gets pregnant, the situation spirals out of control. In the summer of 1990, Jana and Jan flee into the unknown, insecure future of a new Germany. In this film, the director, internationally known for his critical films about children and young people, cast non-professional actors - some from juvenile detention centers - in the leading roles.
- In this film, Wolf and scriptwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase explore the role of art and the artist in socialist society. A sculptor questions the reception and value of his work, in a delicately nuanced narrative interweaving personal memories, historical dilemmas, and political defeats.
- During Great Depression, a family is evicted from their apartment and with no other option they move to a tent camp called Kuhle Wampe.
- Little Sabine has spent her childhood in an orphanage after her parents died in a car accident. When one of the women in charge at the orphanage, Edith, leaves to have a baby, Sabine runs away, because Edith was the only adult there she could trust. She then wanders through the city to find someone to take her in. She meets a lot of people on her journey, but she seems out of place everywhere she goes until, at last, she realizes that there is a special place where she belongs.
- Once upon a time, there lived a lazy miller who spent all his time drinking wine and telling stories. When the king's treasurer comes to him with a demand to pay the tax, the miller lies that his daughter Marie can spin gold from straw.
- DDR film from the mid-60s: Li and Al, not long married, want to divorce. They feel trapped in their marriage and in their one-room apartment. They long for an unconventional, meaningful life, but the search for meaning confounds them.
- The "Concordia" trading company in Würzburg is a secret headquarters of the MID, a secret service agency of the US Army. For years, espionage, sabotage, and diversion operations originated from here in order to undermine the Socialist Republic of Germany. A favorable moment for a military attack approaches and plans are developed. These plans are placed in the hands of Major Collins, who keeps them in a safe. Hansen has worked for him for many years, but also for the Stasi as a double agent. Security Chief Colonel Rock knows there is a leak, but Hansen has passed every test thrown at him. He is trying to deal with his current assignment: acquiring the plans so they can be made public. His mission is to get them out of the safe and into the GDR without getting caught...
- Although the Indians were assured their lands adjacent to the Black Hills by contract, the Whites want to expel them. Meanwhile, gold has been discovered there and the unscrupulous settler, Red Fox, demands of Mattotaupa, chief of the Bears Clan belonging to the Dakota tribe, to reveal to him the location of a cave with gold deposits. Mattotaupa refuses and is stabbed to death by Red Fox in the presence of his son Tokei-ihto. Lieutenant Roach orders Tokei-ihto to Fort Smith in order to negotiate. The son of the slain chief suspects that the Whites are planning an ambush, a fear that is confirmed when he encounters Red Fox there. Tokei-ihto refuses to move to a reservation in an infertile area with his tribe and is incarcerated. When the Dakota Indians have been defeated and resettled, he is released. Tokei-ihto learns of the murder of the senior chief Tashunka-witko. Tokei-ihto now wants to fulfill his legacy, escaping with the subgroup of his tribe to the fertile areas beyond the Missouri in Canada. While the members of the Bears Clan cross the border, Tokei-ihto encounters Red Fox, his father's murderer.
- A film gala featuring a colorfully mixed program of musical numbers, along with the most popular artists of the GDR music, film and television scenes. The majority of the show is comprised of music performances, which are visually altered or transformed. Cabaret-style written contributions and one acts round out the program. Before each performance, the artists involved are seen in an everyday situation in their life.
- Rebellious young Werther is passionately, but hopelessly, in love with Lotte. Although he knows that she is married to somebody who can offer her a secure future, Werther tries to be near her. Lotte cannot decide between these two men. She eventually rejects Werther, who does not survive her decision. Based on the novel by Goethe. Director Egon Günther and set designer Helga Schütz make cameo appearances.
- The second part of the Ernst Thälmann films encompasses the time period between 1930 and Thälmann's murder in 1944. It shows Thälmann's battle to achieve a united front with all German workers against the National Socialists, his arrest following Hitler's seizure of power and the eleven years of his incarceration, in which he is unwavering in his beliefs until his death. An attempt to free him on the part of his comrades ends disastrously, and a corrupt offer of freedom from Göring himself receives Thälmann's refusal. He must also witness how his brave fellow Socialist Aenne Jansen in the women's prison across from his tragically loses her life during a bombing raid. The second primary character of the film is Aenne's husband Fiete Jansen, who already proved his loyalty to Thälmann's side as a friend and fighter in the first part. As the commander of the Thälmann Battalion, he fights in Spain on the side of the people and later in the ranks of the Red Army toward a speedy end to the war against Fascism.
- In 1961, Rita returns to her childhood village after a breakdown. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for chemist Manfred, 10 years her senior; his enthusiasm about his new chemical process, which turned to bitter disappointment in the face of rejection; his escape to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built; and his hope that she would follow him. This East German classic, praised by critics as one of Germany's 100 Most Important Films, is based on Christa Wolf's internationally-known novel, criticized in the GDR for questioning the construction of the Wall. Produced during a brief cultural thaw in the early 1960s, this film was strongly influenced by French Nouvelle Vague cinema.
- In the latter half of the 19th century, gold is discovered in the Black Hills, an area which has already been allocated to the Dakota Indians as a winter reservation in a treaty. Nevertheless, gold diggers, profiteers and adventurers flock to the region. Among them is the hard-hearted land speculator Bludgeon, who tries to expel the Indians using brutal methods like slaughtering entire herds of buffalo. The Dakotas take their revenge by attacking a Union Pacific train. While Chief Farsighted Falcon and his men are out hunting, Bludgeon and his gang massacre the Indian village. The Dakota warriors retaliate and soon the gold diggers' town becomes the scene of a giant battle. Only the advancing cavalry manage to head off certain defeat for the Whites. Farsighted Falcon conquers Bludgeon in single combat, however. Gathering up the remaining members of his tribe, he leads them to safety elsewhere.
- Teenage German soldier is falsely accused of being a war criminal and arrested in Poland of 1945.
- Florida, 1830 - Of all eastern Native American tribes, only the Seminoles have resisted being moved to reservations. Having retreated to Florida, they live a simple horticultural life. But white plantation owners, angry at the increasing numbers of black slaves fleeing to Seminole protection, want to take their land. Plantation owner Raynes, in particular, has convinced the military to wipe out the Seminoles. His rival Moore, a sawmill owner from the North who has a Seminole wife, is against slavery and considers it unprofitable. Chief Osceola sees the coming danger; he tries to avoid provoking the whites, but cannot prevent the war that breaks out in 1835. Osceola was primarily filmed in Cuba and Bulgaria.
- Farsighted Falcon, the Dakota chief, seeks refuge in the Black Hills with his wife Blue Hair and two warriors, the sole survivors of his tribe, in order to join part of the Cheyenne headed by Chief Little Wolf. On the way, they are attacked by the bandit Jim Bashan and his gang. On the orders of mining boss Harrington, Bashan is terrorizing the inhabitants of Tanglewood and regularly stealing goods from the successful trader Sam Blake. Blue Hair is shot by Bashan from behind. Farsighted Falcon pursues him to Tanglewood where he befriends Sheriff Patterson, an honorable man, who wants to help him. Together, they prevent a raid on a shipment of money belonging to Blake. Patterson tries to prove to the incensed citizens of Tanglewood that Bashan is behind the robberies, but the city had surrendered itself to the mining company long ago. Boss Harrington now gives the orders. He revokes the sheriff's badge and incites the whites to lynch the Indians. Although Farsighted Falcon manages to kill Blue Hair's murderer, he falls victim to the the whites' powerlust.
- This historical-biographical film begins in the first days of November 1918 on the western front. News comes to the soldiers of a revolutionary uprising in Kiel. Young Thälmann, a soldier against his will, would like to join the expanding conflict on the side of his comrades in Hamburg. As the revolution becomes threatened by the betrayal of the right-wing Social Democrats and the splintering of the working class, he nevertheless tries unremittingly to unite the workers. The reactionaries grow ever stronger and the neediness of ordinary people multiplies. In this dire situation, the Hamburg police commissioner would like to block the unloading of a ship full of provisions that were sent from Petrograd as a message of solidarity. But Thälmann prevails in unloading it. The high point and conclusion of the first part of the Thälmann films is established at the Hamburg Uprising in October 1923.
- Karl and Richard, two German soldiers captured by the Russians in World War I, become very close friends-so close that Richard shares intimate stories about his wife, Anna. Through these stories, Karl falls in love with her in his thoughts. When Karl escapes and goes to Richard's home, Anna knows he is not her husband. But although she tries to resist Karl's love, she feels a growing response to him. Then, one day, Richard returns... This beautifully shot work was the only East German film ever to win the Golden Bear at the West German Berlin International Film Festival. Shortly after this success, however, the film's distribution was suspended due to problems with the literary rights. After over 20 years, the film is now finally available again.
- Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters: one was her own, the other was a stepdaughter. The eldest relative was ugly and lazy, and the youngest was beautiful and hardworking.
- Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the very next day. The 24 hours before the planned surgery puts her under enormous psychological pressure and she begins to reevaluate her life. With heightened awareness of matters of everyday life, she realizes that what she previously considered meaningful, was actually void of any real meaning. Her relationship with the married man is particularly on her mind. By questioning much of what has been important to her up to now, Inge achieves a high level of sincerity with herself. She finds a faithful confidant in her son who provides much needed sympathy and understanding. Although the anxiety remains, Inge Herold finds the strength to face her illness with a strong will to live and to make consistent decisions in her life. Shot exclusively on location using lay actors. Christine Schorn of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin plays the leading role, delivering a sincere, understated and powerful performance.
- The Rabbit Is Me was made in 1965 to encourage discussion of the democratization of East German society. In it, a young student has an affair with a judge who once sentenced her brother for political reasons; she eventually confronts him with his opportunism and hypocrisy. It is a sardonic portrayal of the German Democratic Republic's judicial system and its social implications. The film was banned by officials as an anti-socialist, pessimistic and revisionist attack on the state. It henceforth lent its name to all the banned films of 1965, which became known as the "Rabbit Films." After its release in 1990, The Rabbit Is Me earned critical praise as one of the most important and courageous works ever made in East Germany. It was screened at The Museum of Modern Art in 2005 as part of the film series Rebels with a Cause: The Cinema of East Germany.
- Winter 1968. Historian Dr. Dallow is released from prison. He is still trying to cope with and understand why he was put behind bars for 21 months for defamation of the state. His supposed "crime:" for five minutes, he accompanied a cabaret chanson on the piano. The film shows what "ordinary socialism" was like, letting the audience feel the threat under which the people in the GDR had to live over many years.
- Scenes from an East German marriage. A young couple, Sonya and Jens, are very much in love; they get married and have a child. When Sonya wants to go back to work after her maternity leave, they clash for the first time; Jens insists that she remain a full-time wife and mother. Until Death Do Us Part turns an actual police report into a gripping drama, as the director explores the depths of his characters' emotions, driving the conflict to a catastrophic climax.
- Once upon a time there was a little girl named Rotkaeppchen. She lived with her father and mother at the edge of a village, and often visited her grandmother on the other side of the woods. Her rabbit friend, Haeschen, lives with Grandmother and was sent one day to fetch medicine and milk from Rotaeppchen and her mother. Although her mother was reluctant to allow her to visit Grandmother alone, Rotkaeppchen convinces her that she will be safe with Haeschen. Together they set out through the woods. Unfortunately, there were many distractions in the woods: mushrooms to pick and Rotkaeppchen's other playmate, the bear. There are also the dangerous fox and wolf, who plotted to capture Rotkaeppchen and eat her. Haeschen did his best to keep them safe, but he could not prevent the wolf from eating Grandmother . . . and also Rotkaeppchen! Who will save them? The DEFA version of Rotkaeppchen differs from the Grimms' version in some minor areas: the mother plays a greater role in the film; DEFA has the father save the day, rather than the huntsman; the wolf does not die at the end, though he is carried away by the family; the second encounter with the wolf at the end of the original tale is left out; and a few animal characters are added (Haeschen, Baer, and das Eichhoernchen). All the animals (other than the Eichhoernchen) are played by people in animal costumes, and Jochen Bley as Haeschen was the big hit with critics and viewers alike. Both warmly and critically received by the press upon its release, Rotkaeppchen followed closely on the heels of the very successful Schneewittchen; hence, in some cases, the disappointment. Many reviews cited Goetz Friedrich's background in theater (both in positive and negative interpretations) to explain the spare, two-dimensional feel of the set. Yet nearly all commented positively on the color and interesting characters, and the Progress press materials summed up the morals for the viewers to learn: "Do what you are told, but act independently when it is necessary; never leave the path, especially the path that your friends have marked with love and experience; be brave, fight against evil, help your friends." Since its release, Rotkaeppchen has become one of the most popular DEFA fairy tale films.
- The successful entertainment artist Ralf Keul must develop his land on the Baltic Sea or else ultimately give it up. Inexperienced yet courageous, he hurls himself into the undertaking, which spares him no unpleasantness. He battles over the transportation and procurement of materials, constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, while his craftsmen offer little additional assistance. About halfway through the project he runs out of money and ends up selling his coin collection. Finally, after countless stresses, job-related irritations, and overlapping marital crises, the house is built. His wife and daughter are thrilled, and enthusiastic visitors show up in droves.
- Based on the novel by Thomas Mann. Charlotte Kestner, the love of Goethe's youth, became famous because she was the real-life Lotte represented in his renowned The Sorrows of Young Werther. At age 44 she travels to Weimar to see Goethe again, and high society's posturing and Goethe's personal history lead her to an unexpected conclusion. Dramaturge (later Studio Director) Walter Janka was befriended by the Thomas Mann family, making this adaptation possible.
- Thueringen, 804 A.D. An orphan boy named Bengel lives in an abbey, teased by the nuns because of his ugliness. He nurtures the Black Knight back to health, though he's thought to have the Plague, so everyone else shuns him. The Knight tells Bengel about the missing Bogumil, son of Slav king Slavomir, who on Charlemagne's order was to marry the Thueringian Margrave's daughter Reglindis. He also asks Bengel about his ancestry. Bengel now believes that he is Bogumil. He goes to the castle, where he meets a beautiful girl who thinks he's just as handsome. It is Reglindis, and she is blind. She finds his inner beauty and devotes herself to him, but her father wants to get rid of him. Bengel barely escapes death twice, the Black Knight reveals his identity with a flourish to Bogumil, and everyone lives happily ever after.
- August 1961. The former Foreign Legionnaire, King, has collected a gang of hooligans, with whom he creates mischief in the GDR. After some careless work on a construction site, an event during which two people lose their lives, they move to a campsite on the Baltic Sea. With sputtering mopeds, loud radios, and occasional outbursts, the gang makes the vacationers' lives living hell. Unfortunately for them, Lieutenant Czernik discovers the connection between them and the accident at the construction site. To stop them from fleeing to West Berlin, Lieutenant Czernik and the police need to arrest them, one at a time, with King as the last.
- In one fairy-tale kingdom, the princess stopped laughing. No one knows the cause of this sudden illness. The worried king promises half the kingdom and a daughter in marriage to the one who will make the princess at least smile.
- At the end of the 19th century, the Wyoming Oil Company has established itself in the vicinity of Wind River City at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where they have been illegally pumping oil from Native American territory. One of the company's greedy agents, Mike Allison, kicks out both his white partners and the Native Americans. He has his some of his associates secretly murdered and blames it on the Native Americans, who are then killed when they get in the way of his plans. Five chiefs with lifelong shares in the Oil Company die mysteriously as a result. The young chief Shave Head asks his a half-blooded brother Chris Howard for help. Chris assumes the post of deputy sheriff and tries to expose Allison and the murderers. When a representative of the Oil Company turns up in Wind River City and exposes Allison's plot, the white inhabitants begin to take sides. Allison does his utmost to defend himself and finally has the oil camp set on fire, passing it off as an act of revenge perpetrated by the Native Americans. The Native Americans are helpless against this accusation and Howard must pay for it with his life.
- Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier, but at the front Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war. When Gilbert is hanged by the SS, Werner turns his gun on his own army. This film, based on Dieter Noll's novel, is a political and artistic masterpiece. Its fresh and surprising frankness about the toll war takes on youth found great public resonance after the film's release.
- Berlin, seven years after WWII. Four women are looking for happiness and a good man in the divided city. Their destinies are loosely connected through one person: the West Berlin dandy and womanizer, Conny. Released at the peak of East German cultural and political dogmatism, the film was heavily critiqued, especially by female party leaders who objected that its portrayal of the four women did not represent the qualities that characterized women in the new society. Now considered as a richly contradictory work, Destinies of Women represents an encore production by the Dudow/Eisler/Brecht creative team that also made Kuhle Wampe in 1932.
- Nina Kern is a divorced woman in her late twenties who will soon be fully deprived of her custody rights for her three children, who already reside in a home for the displaced, due to many years of willful neglect. Although she has broken her promise to change her moral conduct many times, she is given one last chance on probation. A civil engineer and a teacher assume responsibility over her bond, trying to help Nina, or at least her 5 year-old daughter Mireille, to be released from the home. Nina makes a diligent effort to hold down her job as part of a subway cleaning crew and be a good mother to her daughter. She experiences some successes, but also some setbacks. Though in the end her probation is eventually dropped, she believes that she is not mature enough to bear the full burden of raising all of her kids. With a heavy heart, she resigns her custody rights for her daughter Jacqueline, with whom she has not come to terms.
- Two adolescents, Sauly and Mick, get to know each other while hitchhiking and stick together for the long haul. They both want to reach the ocean, which is some thousand kilometers away. An old car picks them up, but the trip ends shortly thereafter in a sleazy motel. At the bar, a man named Landolfi approaches them. He explains to Sauly that he must have sold his guardian angel to a man by the name of Miller in the city of Prince. Though the boys do not believe in guardian angels, Sauly slowly succumbs to his own fears. He would like to have his guardian angel back again. On their trip, Sauly becomes sick. Mick works on a farm to pay the doctor's bills. Once Sauly is well, they travel farther - until they reach Prince. In this mysterious city, all of the people are named Miller, and once Sauly and Mick finally are at the ocean, they meet Landolfi once more.
- After WWII, Berlin lies in ruins. For Gustav, Willi and their friends the rubble provides an adventurous, dangerous playground. Especially for Gustav, it helps pass the time, as he longs for his father's return from a POW camp. One day a stranger arrives, looking helpless and hopeless... Gerhard Lamprecht built his reputation during the 1920s and '30s with films like Emil and the Detectives (1931, script Billy Wilder) and socially-critical Berlin films based on the drawings of Heinrich Zille. In Somewhere in Berlin-his first postwar film, made just months after the cessation of hostilities-he portrays the people of the shattered city with precision and psychological realism.
- A young married couple-both actors-work in Cold War Berlin before the Wall is built. Agnes is on location in East Berlin, and Jochen, her husband, works at the Westend Theater in West Berlin. They hold diametrically opposed views on politics, art and the responsibility of the individual to society. As they have vehement arguments, their marriage is in danger of breaking up. This film portrays numerous figures of contemporary German cultural and political life-including Veit Harlan, director of the notorious Nazi propaganda film Jud Süss, and Boleslaw Barlog, a famous West Berlin theater director. Also memorable in this film is documentary footage of the construction of Stalin Allee, the biggest boulevard built in East Berlin after WWII, soon to become a central locus of the popular uprising of 17 June 1953. Although director Kurt Maetzig depicts Cold War Berlin with dramatic verve, the film illustrates the tightening grip of Stalinism on East German cultural production at this time.
- Fourteen-year-old Stefan Kolbe, along with his mother and sister, moves from an idyllic small town to the developing area of Berlin-Marzahn, where his father works as a construction worker. Stefan must find his way in a completely new environment and surrounded by strange people. Stefan gets to know two girls, who attempt to seduce him, and gets himself into trouble with the landlord, who kisses up to societal authority figures. He becomes friends with the anxious Hubert, defends him against the constant humiliation of the older student Windjacke, and encourages him to stand up for himself. It ends tragically in a bitter fight between Stefan and Windjacke.
- There once was a poor miller, who had no children but three boys to work for him. The two older and larger ones were lazy, mean, and stupid. The youngest was hard-working, friendly, and cheerful. When the miller decides that he is too old to work anymore, he tells each of the boys to go out into the world and find a beautiful horse. He who brings back the most beautiful horse will inherit the mill and must care for the miller in his old age. When the two older boys leave the youngest behind, he meets a magic cat, who says she will give him a beautiful horse, as long as he can complete three tasks: first, he has to chop wood with a silver axe; then he must cut down all the grass in the field by the end of the day; finally, he must chop down trees and build the cat a home. He returns to the mill to wait for his reward, and not only does Hans receive the horse, but some even better surprises, as well!
- The wrenching story of a woman sentenced in 1934 to 10 years in prison for antifascist activities. The love between her and her fiancé enables her to survive the tribulations of her time in prison, where she is one of few political prisoners.
- When Dr. Schmith's (Armin Mueller-Stahl) proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children's hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. He falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina (Jenny Gröllmann). Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly... As the topic of escaping to the West was taboo in the GDR, The Flight is an exception in East German film history. The film, which won the Grand Prix at the Karoly Vary International Film Festival in 1978, was the last one Armin Mueller-Stahl made at the East German DEFA studios. In 1980, only two years after the release of the film, he left East Germany for the West because of professional restrictions imposed upon him after he joined protests against the expatriation of the dissident singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann.
- Based on the 1947 book "I.G. Farben", by American author Richard Sasuly, and records from the Nuremberg Trial of the chemical giant I.G. Farben, Council of the Gods is a story about the collaboration between international corporations and German scientists, whose research contributed to the death of millions. Featuring music by Hanns Eisler, electronic sound by Oskar Sala (Hitchcocks's "The Birds") and a script by Friedrich Wolf, the film is powerful in its depiction of the moral dilemmas and lessons of the war, as well as of Cold War propaganda. Chemist Dr. Hans Scholz lives through a tortuous political transformation and maturation process. Finally, he becomes wrapped up in his political neutrality and closes his eyes to the fact that poison is being produced in his factory. Standing before the judges at the Nuremberg trials he has to face the fact that he was partly responsible for the deaths of millions in the gas chambers of the extermination camps.
- Sailor Felix Striebel visits the fresh grave of "Mother Magdalena" during his vacation. This brings back memories of his childhood: the Magdalena tree was an oak named after the community Magda, and stood as a symbol of stability and security. She had saved his life when a bulldozer tried to run him over. She was the soul of the place, accepted everyone else, and missed out on something for herself. For a short time, Felix lived with her while his mother, Rosie, an alcoholic, lay in the hospital. At the time, the painter Ramboll, sho had left the city in a depressive state, was also in the area. A love relationship grew between him and Magda, and when Felix lived there, she almost experienced domestic happiness. When Rosie left the hospital, however, she took Felix back in with her. She didn't go with Ramboll, either, who wanted to return to the city, as she expected he had needed her only to find himself again. The only thing remaining is the tree, which will remember Magda forever.
- Four young Germans in a Soviet POW camp decide to join the Red Army to hasten the end of the war. Their new identities elicit different reactions from Germans and Russians, and are difficult to live up to when they are sent behind German lines.
- A young, naive and enthusiastic theater director named Kai comes to a grim provincial town to put on Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Although the lethargic theater company shows no interest in the play, his spirit remains undaunted. Meanwhile, it is fall 1989. The world is changing and somewhere, far away in the capital, a revolution is taking place and it seems that wishes might come true. Great hopes emerge in the little town and unexpected events overtake Kai's mutating production.
- Alfons lives with his grandparents on a Silesian village farm at the end of WWII. He adores his grandmother, who runs everything after her husband dies. But everything changes after the appearance of a traveling showman in the xenophobic village.