Open the Wall

Hanussen

May 1988 •Hungarian

A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?

Untouchable

June 2011 •English

A masseuse's journey to find the human touch.

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December 1971 •English

A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob the safety deposit boxes of three very different criminals from a high-tech bank in Hamburg.

Hush

March 1998 •English

Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.

Sorry, We're Dead

February 2024 •English

The ennui of a filmmaker, trapped between aspiration and reality, frames Lana Jing’s quirky, sarcastic, and cinematic-joke filled quarter-life crisis. At her lecture hall job, where aging white men wax on, self-involved, Lana accidentally frames her friend and co-worker when she destroys the only copy of an aging tech-bro’s high-profile lecture. Lana is forced to navigate stop motion animation, a secret admirer, and terrible bridge traffic to sort out a way forward to her destiny… kinda.

Blonde Venus

September 1932 •English

In an effort to be able to afford expensive treatment for her gravely ill American husband, a retired German entertainer returns to the cabaret as Blonde Venus and catches the eye of a wealthy politician.

The Principal

October 2003 •French

François, director of a primary school, teaches third graders. It's a demanding position, leaving him little time for his private life. But he is committed. At the beginning of the school year, his daughter has come to stay with him. Laura is 14 and has arrived from Tahiti with her mother for the first time after his separation, shaking up his calm existence. In the school courtyard, behind the playful games and laughter of the kids, their cries mask problems they struggle with on a day to day basis. Francois is more than a teacher, he's a friend and a protector.

Pope Joan

October 2009 •English

A 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Ingelheim disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks.

Beerfest

August 2006 •English

During a trip to Germany to scatter their grandfather's ashes, German-American brothers Todd and Jan discover Beerfest, the secret Olympics of downing stout, and want to enter the contest to defend their family's beer-guzzling honor. Their Old Country cousins sneer at the Yanks' chances, prompting the siblings to return to America to prepare for a showdown the following year.

Der Eiserne Gustav

December 1958 •German

Die Todesautomatik

November 2007 •German

The Architects

June 1990 •German

The architect Daniel Brenner is in his late thirties when he receives his first challenging and lucrative commission: to design a cultural center for a satellite town in East-Berlin. He accepts the offer under the condition that he gets to choose who he works with. This way, he reunites with former colleagues and friends - most of them architects or students of architecture who have since chosen a different profession due to personal restraint or economic confinement. Together, they develop a concept which they hope will be more appealing to the public than the conventional and dull constructions common to the German Democratic Republic. However, their ambitious plans are once and again foiled by their conservative supervisors. As frustration grows, Daniel has trouble keeping his career in balance with his family-life: his wife Wanda wants to leave for West-Germany.

The Distances

September 2018 •Catalan

Olivia, Eloy, Guille and Anna travel to Berlin to pay a surprise visit to their friend Comas. His welcome is not as they expected and during the weekend their friendship is put to the test. Together they discover that time and distance can change everything.

Buffalo Soldiers

October 2002 •English

A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Days to Remember

February 1987 •German

They meet in Yugoslavia. Katharina, daughter of a Yugoslavian immigrant worker, has grown up in the Federal Republic of Germany. She is a confident, energetic career woman who has managed to work her way up to become a successful television journalist. She goes to visit her parent's country, to do a story about the children of immigrant workers in their home country. Although she says she doesn´t need a "home" any more, even she feels strange in her own country. Peter is a rather "untypical" sort of man: a dreamer, a thinker. He has given up his steady job as a composer for advertising films and is divorced. He goes to Jugoslavia to find something out about the past. He travels to the places where his father was stationed during the Second World War.

The Reader

December 2008 •English

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

The Day the Rains Came

November 1959 •German

A motorcycle gang in post-war Germany wreaks havok on a town, until one of their members begins to have second thoughts after a run-in with the police.

My Brother Is an Only Child

March 2007 •Italian

Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.

Chasing Ghosts

April 2014 •English

Lucas Simons, an 11-year-old filmmaker, is obsessed with death after the loss of his brother. When Lucas accidentally captures a mysterious presence in one of his films, he inadvertently becomes a YouTube phenomenon, and must learn to live life in the spotlight while also learning how to once again start living life to its fullest.

Heroes Like Us

November 1999 •German

A young man from an early age falls in love with a girl whose family is not in good standing with the ruling Communist party. His father however is a member of the "Stasi", the secret state police. The father not only hinders his son's relationship with the girl, but he arranges for his son, after finishing school, to become a Stasi spy himself.