Solo für Martina

Sushi in Suhl

October 2012 •German

One evening in the mid-sixties, Rolf Anschütz, a chef who runs a small restaurant in a town called Suhl in the middle of the East German province of Thuringen offers his guests a unique and exotic meal - Japanese Sukiyaki. It was intent to be a surprise for some of his best customers and it became a great success. Even the local paper wrote about it - and this should change the life of Rolf Anschütz forever.

The Indestructibles

Invalid date •English

East Germany, 1986. When her sister flees to West Berlin, the life of a young East German woman is turned upside down as she must justify her involvement in the escape to the authorities and decide between her family and her own safety.

Whispers of Freedom

November 2024 •English

When Chris Gueffroy becomes increasingly disillusioned with his life in 1980s East Germany, he hatches a plan with his friend, Christian Gaudian, to escape the isolated Eastern bloc state without telling his mother, Karin. The pair believe that the standing order to shoot anyone who crosses the Berlin Wall, as ordered by the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, Erich Honecker, has been lifted due to the state visit of Swedish PM Ingvar Carlsson. The young men seize their chance and attempt the fateful escape to the west.

Preis der Freiheit

February 1966 •German

24 hours on the border between East and West Germany. In an outlying West Berlin district, police officers chat about their personal lives, take care of petty offence and at most, warn the odd rubbernecker away from the border to the “Soviet zone”. Meanwhile their East German counterparts are under enormous pressure. The day begins with disciplinary action after one of the border guards was found sleeping on duty. The supervisors demand utmost vigilance and a solid ideological bent, and suspicion and mistrust are the rule within the ranks of these soldiers of the National People’s Army (NVA). Unnoticed by the soldiers, four East Berlin students are preparing to flee to the west. But in the morning mists, only their accomplice, an NVA private, succeeds …

Fatherland

September 1986 •German

Persona Non Grata in his homeland, protest singer Klaus Drittemann must leave East Berlin, his wife and child and emigrate to West Berlin, where the representatives of an American record company are eagerly waiting for him. They plan to exploit his defection from communism both ideologically and financially. But Klaus, as ill-at-ease in the West as he was in the East, is reluctant to be used as an expendable commodity. Leaving his contract unsigned (or signed in his manner), he leaves for Cambridge to meet his father, a concert player, who -just like him - left East Berlin thirty years ago as Klaus was a little boy. He is accompanied by a young French journalist, Emma, who knows where his father has been living since he disappeared for more than a decade. The young lady is cooperative but might hide things from him...

Auf der anderen Seite die Freiheit

May 2022 •German

Lonig & Havendel

January 2025 •German

To see snow and learn German, the young Vietnamese girl Trúc Lâm (Nano Nguyen) moves to a small town in the middle of the Erzgebirge mountains in Saxony. She is fascinated by the forest, the mountains and the clear air that smells of clouds and winter and burns her nose when she breathes it in - for which she is mocked by her classmates. On a trip to a mine, she gets lost in the labyrinth of dark shafts and suddenly emerges on the other side of the mountain. This world is almost identical to the old one - but the characters have been replaced. In the town on the other side, she meets Duc (Tri An Bui), the son of a Vietnamese family who run an Asian snack bar. And while Duc tries to find a balance between his German-Vietnamese heritage and the expectations of others, Trúc Lâm accepts the help of a ghost to find her way back into her world.

Sky Without Stars

October 1955 •German

Anna is a factory worker in East Germany. Her five-year-old son Jochen lives with his grandparents in the West and Anna wants him to live with her, so she abducts him. Along the way she meets Carl who helps her with her son and they fall in love.

Das Romeo-Prinzip

November 2015 •German

Tom does not have it easy. At the student theater, his friend Jan and his beloved Annelie play the leading roles; the inconspicuous Tom, on the other hand, makes the prop. When he realizes that he must finally take his life, and especially love, into his own hands, he turns to his janitor, Mr Müller. What Tom does not know: Müller was once a psychologist of the Stasi! In the so-called "Romeo" program, he prepared male agents to address women in Germany and make them available as a source.

Sternenklar

April 2022 •English

East-Berlin, 1980. Two sisters, one professional fleeing assistant and one soldier. And an escape that could go either way...

Frost

February 1997 •German

Time of darkness. Time of fire kindled against cold and fear. During the Holy Night, the seven year old Micha has to escape with his young mother Marianne from the violence of his drunken father... During their one week odyssey through frozen Germany, mother and son meet people to offer them shelter... Crushed by their own poverty, or dominated by their feelings of being lost, these people just hurt them deeper and they can be nothing other than stations of their continuous escape

Kati: A Freestyle That Stays

July 2024 •German

Four years after the end of the German Democratic Republic, Katarina Witt, two-time Olympic champion, is planning her comeback to prove to herself and to a united Germany that she still has what it takes. To do this, she has to team up with her former coach Jutta Müller and complete the toughest training of her life.

Willkommen bei den Honeckers

October 2017 •German

Max Bretschneider pretends to be a communist in order to conduct the last interview with Erich Honecker.

1-2-3 Corona

September 1948 •German

Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist named Corona comes to the destroyed city with a traveling circus. She immediately caught the boys' attention. When the latter notice that the circus director is abusing the girl, the two gangs join forces and plot an act of revenge against the tyrant. But with the hustle and bustle caused by this, Corona falls from the trapeze and is seriously injured. When the circus moves on, the boys organize a doctor for the sick artist who has been left behind. Their collectively concern for the blonde beauty makes them forget their enmity. This welds the troops closer together and sets the course for a common, meaningful future.

Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie

September 2007 •German

Based on a true story, Miguel Alexandre's two-part drama focuses on an East German woman and the fight for her children. Spring 1982: Sara Bender, living with her daughters Silvia and Sabine in the East German town of Erfurt, wants to marry her colleague Peter, but shortly before the wedding, her father is killed in a road accident. As the funeral takes place in West Germany, she isn't allowed to got there, so she starts planning to leave her communist home country forever. Trying to flee via Romania, she is caught by the secret service. After years in jail, Sara is ransomed by the West German government, but without her daughters. To draw the world's attention on her desperate situation, she starts demonstrating at the Berlin border crossing Checkpoint Charlie

Living With Uwe

March 1974 •German

Uwe Polzin, a highly talented biologist publicly stands the defence of his doctorate and this crucial day prompts him to look back on his life so far. These reminiscences are not altogether positive and he and his family still face almost unsolvable problems. For; while Ruth, Uwe's sister, consciously goes without family life and private happiness in order to devote herself fully to her vocation as a doctor; he tries to reconcile career and family. He has found in Alla, his wife - an interpreter - not only a truly loving partner but also someone who shares his basic view of life. Still, their marriage is undergoing a crisis. Uwe's job has become so demanding that he expects her to cope with a great deal of domestic problems. Alla senses that her husband is exploiting her love towards him and that he expects her only to make sacrifices for him. This is why she is contemplating divorce.

The Blue One

February 1994 •German

In this German political drama, an ex-Stasi agent encounters an old friend whom he may have betrayed after his friend tried to escape East Germany. The former East German agent is Otto Skrodt who after many years is about to be promoted in the highest government ranks. He is anxious to maintain a squeaky clean image. His daughter is Isabelle. The young and friendly Kalle returns after spending many years in jail for his escape attempts. He doesn't know exactly who blew the whistle, but his friend Skrodt is definitely under suspicion. Kalle returns to ostensibly renew the friendship and to see Isabelle whom he loves. The duplicitous friendship between the two men becomes the main focus of the story which features interesting plot twists at the end.

Quiet Crossing

January 2019 •English

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…

Mit Herz und Hilde

September 2024 •German

Hilde's restaurant is booming! Hilde and her colleagues can look forward to plenty of customers with their unusual meatball creations. But the cash register is not doing well at all: too many free burgers for the needy call the tax office into action. Hilde goes into a tailspin when Angie and Lore throw in the towel.

The Lives of Others

March 2006 •German

In 1983 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.