Germany
In post-war Germany, liberation by the Allies does not mean freedom for everyone. Hans Hoffmann is repeatedly imprisoned under Paragraph 175, which criminalizes homosexuality. Nevertheless, over the decades, he continues his quest for freedom and love, even if he finds it in the most unusual places.
To escape mounting tensions at the advertising agency they co-own, French-German couple Nina and Jan whisk their kids, Max and Emma, away to their seaside vacation home. The couple has signed a new politically charged client, forcing them to confront their clashing priorities. But what’s meant to be an idyllic off-season retreat turns sinister when burglars tear through the house, unseen by anyone except Nina. Though at first the aftermath brings the family closer, it’s short-lived once Max reveals he glimpsed his father hiding during the break-in. As the police investigate and the evidence doesn’t add up, the account of what took place begins to unravel alongside the couple’s faith in each other.
Insurance broker Max’s life is about one thing – keeping his walnut brain tumour in check. He eats properly, exercises and lives properly, but all of this self-consciousness makes him more and more depressed. When he realises that his beloved wife plans to leave him, he decides to take his own life.
The legendary Elfkins (Heinzelmännchen) of Cologne were gnomes secretly helping craftsmen at night until they were ousted by a tailor’s malevolent wife 200 years ago. This is the story of their return.
Two oddball Berliners discover the abandoned appendages of a mannequin. Separately, and with grotesque consequence, they come to terms with their disjointed mate.
A pilot’s aircraft is hi-jacked by terrorists.
A divorced mother looks to protect her daughter after an unexpected tragedy.
When an outcast cop receives a lead to the location of a notorious assassin, he sets out to find him but walks directly into a trap. Beat up and knocked out, he wakes up in Breakdown Forest, the most dangerous place on earth; a large-scale battle arena in the wilderness. It’s a fight to the death and only the strongest will survive.
This is the tale of a young woman, growing up in the age of the internet and turning the search for oneself into a public spectacle, allowing kids from all over the world to live their life through hers. Through her fragmented personalities you see the emergence of a new generation, in which the concept of a fixed identity has grown old.
Nineteen-year-old Vera Kall cycles home through the night. She arrives at a farm, leaves her bike and sneaks quietly in through the door. She enters the kitchen and doesn’t even have time to notice that she’s not alone.
A young American couple, Mark and Olivia, are expecting their first child. Before that, they want to make their dream of a trip to Europe come true. They book private accommodations through an Internet portal and embark on their 4-weeks-journey. On their arrival in Germany Elisabeth picks them up at the airport. She is the daughter of the landlady of Mark and Olivias first accommodation, a tiny house, located at a beautiful lake, in the hometown of Olivia’s great-grandparents. They learn that the 82-years old landlady is in the hospital and dying. Elisabeth drives Mark and Olivia to the house. And then the two young people spend their first night in Germany. A night in which Mark gets to know the owner in a special way. The next morning, it is strangely quiet over the house by the lake. And no one will know so quickly what happened a few hours ago.
A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven’s life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna’s assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.
Seven friends – three women and four men – meet for dinner. Everyone should put their cell phone on the table. No matter what message comes in – anyone can read it and listen to the phone calls. However, this leads to a lot of chaos.
Inspector Amaia Salazar must return to the Baztan valley in order to solve a series of suicides that seem to follow a similar pattern.
Charting the rise and fall of three corrupt real estate agents who accumulate absurd wealth in no time but fall into a vortex of fraud, greed and drugs.
As the youngest of the family, Sam is haunted by the notion that someday he could become the last remaining survivor, all alone. On a family vacation at the beach, he meets the unconventional Tess, who carries her own secrets around with her and shows him how the present moment can win out over memories and anxiety about what’s yet to come.
Alberto (Claudio Bisio), post office manager of a small town in Brianza, under pressure of his wife Sylvia (Angela Finocchiaro), is willing to do anything to get the transfer to Milan. Even pretending to be disabled to climb in the ranking. But the trick does not work and as punishment, he is transferred in a small town in Campania, which to an inhabitant of the north is equivalent to a nightmare …
Sex is power, and Waseem, a Syrian gay-for-pay hustler seeking asylum in Cologne, wields it like a shield. Keeping his johns at an emotional arm’s length while satisfying their most carnal desires in order to eke out a living, he meets his match in Lars: a kind, affluent professional with a growing personal interest in Waseem. This gripping tale of transactional identity explores the tactical exchange of trust and intimacy in a partnership, and the divisions between immigrants and their host countries in contemporary Europe.
Sarah is a French astronaut training at the European Space Agency in Cologne. She is the only woman in the arduous program. She lives alone with Stella, her seven year old daughter. Sarah feels guilty that she cannot spend more time with her child. Her love is overpowering, unsettling. When Sarah is chosen to join the crew of a year-long space mission called Proxima, it creates chaos in the mother-daughter relationship.
A Romanian police officer, determined to free from prison a crooked businessman who knows where a mobster’s money is hidden, must learn the difficult ancestral language (Silbo Gomero) used on the island of Gomera.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1950. In the conservative home of the Gusmão family, Eurídice and Guida are two inseparable sisters who support each other. While Guida can share with her younger sister the details of her romantic adventures, Eurídice finds in her older sister the encouragement she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a professional pianist.
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari.
An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself forced to fight a gladiator-like battle for a dark website that streams the violence for viewers. Miles must fight heavily armed Nix and also save his kidnapped ex-girlfriend.
Becky, Tommi and Maik form a right-wing terror cell that lives in the underground and is dreaming of country-wide attention. Entangled in a complex relationship of love, hate and friendship, they follow a path of destruction that leads to a series of violent crime. Their alleged values such as honor, pride and loyalty decline due to their increasing disorientation.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.
Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.
Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself.
On the 3rd of October a twenty-four-year-old student from Vienna kills his lover and chops up her corpse. Her torso is found in a dumpster, other body parts and the head are missing. There is no clue about the motive of the murder. A silent chronology of the events.
David Berman and his friends, all Holocaust survivors, have only one purpose: to go to America as soon as possible. For this they need money. Close to his aim, David is not only deprived of his savings but also overtaken by his shady past.
Javier is an obsessed artist who is grieving the end of a relationship. His sorrow comes as a combination of memories, instinct and denial, and the mourning’s harsh feelings will compromise his sense of reality. Surrounded by doubt, and subjected to several addictions, Javier fights to find peace – until his lattermost move take him to a surrealistic emotional purgatory. The absurdity in which Javier finds himself might be a way out of the pain, and his redemption to love and all endings. But first he needs to confront his demons and to take one last chance into the pleasures of the flesh.
