A small-town girl goes to the Berlinale.
Social & External
The people behind it
Linda Becker
Griseldis
Gode Benedix
Journalist
Katja Bienert
Wanda Maria Rose
Nadine Buchet
Wanda
Hannes Ducke
Paul Haberland
Peer Fischer
Working man
Ilka Hügel
Erika
Habib Jawadi
Parwisi
Olaf John
Wanda's boyfriend
Manfred Kloss
Man in subway
45,000 sections of reinforced concrete - three tons each. Nearly 300 watchtowers., over 250 dog runs, twenty bunkers. Sixty-five miles of anti-vehicle trenches—signal wire, barbed wire, beds of nails. Over 11,000 armed guards. A death strip of sand, well-raked to reveal footprints. 200 ordinary people shot dead following attempts to escape the communist regime. 96 miles of concrete wall. Families divided, loved ones lost…
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...
Danger and Kaspar are graffiti artists who have each been ejected from their respective crews. They decide to work on a project in honor of one of their deceased brethren.
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.
A couple of thirtysomething best friends unwittingly become entangled in an international conspiracy when one’s ex-boyfriend shows up at their apartment with a team of deadly assassins on his trail.
Berlin is quite often pretty dirty. But what if there is one person who takes care of that every day? We tell the story of a one-man underground department that (by its own claim) makes Berlin the coolest big city in Germany. The Authority for Urban Authenticity.
Christmas 1945. In a train from Stockholm to Berlin are a motley collection. It is the failure of the author Gunnar who wants to leave his old life and make a contribution in Berlin; physician Henry who plan to marry Marie and likewise Henry's current wife Karin, who he plans to kill during the journey, the middle-aged gay couple Pompe and Sixten, a soldier going to Uppsala but is on the wrong train: the cheerful and cynical old Margaret, and a dressed elf and a surly conductor. With the train are also a number of Baltic refugees accompanied by two nuns to be sent to Germany.
David, a recently fired scrapyard worker and Marie, a prostitute, both about 20 years old, meet on New Year's Eve in Berlin and decide to run away together. As David's arm is plastered from an accident Marie continues to prostitute herself to finance their restless journey through the Ruhr area. Their love and their will to survive guide them though all problems.
Valeri Sikorski knows from his doctors that his days are numbered because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He wants to make a last adventure in his life and goes to England, but first he stops in Berlin to pick up his best friend Victor. But Victor has disappeared. Now Valeri's journey turns into a search for his old friend Victor.
Berlin Alexanderplatz; within 24 hours, various stories rotate between the heights and depths of the square, between the television tower and the subway shafts, between larger and smaller fates, that slowly but surely become entangled.
Berlin Kreuzberg at the beginning of the 80s. Lawyer Hanna, daughter of a good family and working as a scientific social worker, gets caught between two sides. Her conservative fiancé Konrad wants to avenge the murder of his friend Theo on the Turks, but she loves a young Turk and wants to help the foreigners with their problems. There are also gray wolves and right-wing radicals, there is xenophobia and pressure creates counter-pressure - rebellion, bomb attacks and prison riots are the order of the day. An almost predictable catastrophe is on the horizon.
A communist kangaroo moves in with an artist in Berlin.
The President's daughter, unable to experience life like a normal 18 year-old, escapes from her entourage of Secret Service agents while traveling in Europe. She falls in love with a handsome British stranger, who also happens to be working undercover for her father.
Moritz follows a boyfriend to Berlin and is soon abandoned by him. Alone in the big city, he embarks on a journey through a wide range of queer experience. Only through a new circle of queer friends does he develop his own ideas of sexuality and masculinity, leading him to a clearer self-identity.
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
A lighthearted look at the opening of the border crossing of Bornholmer Straße in Berlin from the point of view of the confused border guards.
Niko, a twenty-something college dropout, lives for the moment as he drifts through the streets of Berlin, curiously observing everyone around him and oblivious to his growing status as an outsider. Then on one fateful day, through a series of absurdly amusing encounters, everything changes.
An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.
A pseudo documentary study of an archetypal German who tries to model his world according to his ideas of law and (sexual) order.
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Train driver Nurlan’s heading to Baku for the last time before retirement, but on his fateful journey around the neighborhoods of the city his train snags a blue bra off a washing line. To escape from his lonely existence, Nurlan embarks on the most adventurous journey of his life: to find the owner of this perky piece of underwear. He rents a small room in Baku and begins his quest to find his “Cinderella”.
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.
Eric returns home for a short visit and finds himself caught between reuniting with his sisters and chasing a victory with his old poker group. As the trip extends, Eric finds it increasingly difficult to avoid confrontations and revelations as his carefully constructed façade of his adulthood gives way to old childhood conflicts.
In October 1989, the part of the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg called SO 36, had been largely shut off by the Wall from the rest of the city for 28 years. A lethargic sub-culture of students, artists, bohemians and barflys had flourished among crumbling buildings. Part of that microcosm is barkeeper Frank, semi-formally called 'Herr Lehmann' by friends and patrons. He hangs out drinking, sports utter disregard for anything beyond SO 36 and lazily pursues an affair with cook Katrin. His lifestyle is gradually disturbed, when his parents show up for a visit, things go awry with Katrin and his best friend Karl starts to act strange. Meanwhile, political turmoil mounts on the other side of the Wall.
When a group of old college friends reunite over a long weekend after one of them attempts suicide, old crushes and resentments shine light on their life decisions, and ultimately push friendships and relationships to the brink.
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
A burned-out paramedic tries to survive his last 24 hours on the job while training a new recruit.
Mother Lissy, father Gerd, son Tom and daughter Ellen: the members of the Lunies family are estranged. But confronted with death, they finally meet each other again.
In Hamburg, German-Greek chef Zinos unknowingly disturbs the peace in his locals-only restaurant by hiring a more talented chef.
