Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB)

In the 15th century, a young goatherd living alone in a mountain hut feels a dark presence in the woods.

December 1999. I remember that, amidst the Millennium Bug anxiety, I went to the birthday of Enrico, a kid who lived with his family in an old and isolated farmhouse.

After many years apart, Emilie meets her brother Jakob again. She not only shares her sadness about the loss of their parents with him, but also a secret...

In the Georgian riverside town of Kutaisi, summertime romance and World Cup fever are in the air. After a pair of chance encounters, pharmacist Lisa and soccer player Giorgi find their plans for a date undone when they both awaken magically transformed with no way to recognize each other.

A depiction of the Wrangelkiez neighbourhood in Berlin. The people portrayed tell their life stories. One woman came to the neighbourhood a decade ago to work in Berlin’s still unfinished Brandenburger Airport, one man reminisces his childhood on a Tobacco farm in Kentucky, another speaks of an exceptional day in an otherwise monotonous workplace. These portraits are interwoven with the story of Elpi, a Greek woman who is waiting for the long overdue visit of an old important friend. The outcome of this mixture is a film which captures the lives and perspectives of some of Wrangelkiez’s most commanding citizens, while at the same time evoking the loss that change and time passing means for places and for people.

Jakob, a young policeman from a remote village, has his world unhinged when a stranger in a dress emerges from the forest and begins killing villagers with a sword.

The mysteriously familiar face of a deceased young woman shakes young surgeon Fabian out of his lethargy. On a whim, he leaves Berlin for Portugal, determined to win back his former girlfriend Doro, who works at an architectural company in Lisbon.

Martin leaves his protective parents’ home and comes to Berlin as a law student with high hopes. He finds a tiny, run-down flat in a strange, dark apartment block, from which the previous tenant has disappeared without a trace. Having no luck with social contacts at the university, Martin quickly falls for his mysterious landlady Simone, who lives just next door behind a thin wall. Hoping to find trust and intimacy, Martin loses himself in the house’s disturbing world of sex and violence. Deep in the walls, Martin discovers the true horror of his first love.

Real estate agent Christian travels the countryside scouting for investment prospects. In a forgotten, seemingly abandoned village far off the main roads, he finds more than he is looking for. Getting entangled in an encounter with a taciturn teenage farmhand, he confronts his sexual frustrations and, in the process, gets drawn into the undergrowth of a bloodthirsty rustic community.

A girl roams through the city looking for a place to sleep. Along the way she meets young mothers who celebrate motherhood religiously, goes home with an abstinent existentialist for whom sex is “just another market”, and waits for the end of capitalism in a drag bar. Her attempt to write a book doesn’t make it beyond the first sentence of the second chapter, and she finds no space between art galleries, yoga studios and the beds of strangers. Instead of trying to fit in, she starts regarding her depression as a political issue.

Hawk and his son Billy are old school rockabilly guys with an unbreakable bond. Until one day when Hawk finds out, that outside of their little rock 'n roll world, Billy leads a different life, which he didn't know about.

Gerd Conradt films men carrying a red flag in a relay race through Berlin, to hoist it on the balcony of the current Mayor’s seat. A cinematic experiment based on Eadweard Muybridge, Andy Warhol and New American Cinema. A study in men, movements and a symbol. This is the 7th part of this series of film exercises. The other 6 parts were staged by Harun Farocki (Part 1), Carlos Bustamante (Part 2), Helke Sander (Part 3), Holger Meins (Part 4), Wolfgang Petersen (Part 5), Philip Werner Sauber (Part 6).

When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.

Nina, a young actor, returns to the Ruhr region for her grandmother’s funeral. Tensions surface between her and her mother. The noises of a small town fill the eloquent silences in the complex mother-daughter relationships explored in this endearing film.

Henry is alone in a silent and darkened apartment, anxious and waiting by the phone, as his small child sleeps. Finally, a call. His wife Claire is on the other side of the world on a beach at a luxury resort, drunk, also in the dark, but apparently with another man. An adulterous affair, or a life in danger? In the harrowing wait and frantic calls that follow, is it his marriage, his wife or his sanity that is most under threat? The telephone line is the single fragile thread that connects them. All Henry can do is to hang onto that phone.

A film inspired by one of Germany's most visited blogs. The author of the site www.notesofberlin.com, Joab Nist, posts pictures of real announcements, notes, information that people leave in the streets of Berlin. The film follows 15 genuine notes and protagonists. The result is 15 funny, tragic, fascinating episodes about people and the city they live in. Twenty-four hours from the life of the city. The story begins with a note attached to a street lamp, with the message “For one minute please just stand here in silence, look at the sky and contemplate how amazing life is”. Is it possible that only a very drunk young man notices the text and looks upwards? An extraordinary mood picture of present-day Berlin and a declaration of love for the city.

An accidental meeting in an elevator at a department store leads two older women to their limits and forces them to improvise by the time the elevator gets stuck.

The undercover investigator Robert is supposed to win the trust of a criminal through a fictitious relationship with Leni. However, the feelings are not just a game. It is the spied criminal, of all people, who makes him confront his contradictory feelings…

Elena is a student in Minsk. She is having an intense but self-destructive love affair with Viktor. When Elena's father goes to prison she has to take charge of his business dealings to help him. She drives repeatedly into the restricted zone at Chernobyl, behind the wheel of a truck, in order to smuggle contaminated steel. The conflicts with Viktor escalate, and Elena is increasingly captivated by the zone's deceptive beauty...

It is a Saturday in autumn, and Karin and Simon are visiting their parents and youngest sister Clara. This family gathering provides the occasion for a dinner together, at which other relatives appear over the course of the day. While the family members animate the apartment’s space with their conversations, everyday activities and cooking preparations, the cat and dog range through the various rooms. they too become a central element in this quotidian familial dance that repeatedly manifests stylized elements, disrupting any naturalistic mode of presentation. In this way, adjoining spaces open up between family drama, fairy tale and the psychological study of a mother.