Castles and Cottages

The Good German

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.

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger

This drama is based on the childhood memories of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi, who was one of the few black native Germans in Nazi Germany. In 1935 at the age of nine, he lives with his German mother in a small flat in Hamburg's working class district Barmbek, while his father and grandfather had left the country. Although the boy is not persecuted by the Nazis and dreams of joining the Hitler Youth, his skin color makes him a target for racist abuse...

Germany, Year Zero

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

Pugowitza

World War II is over and Heinrich, a young German boy, influenced by the Russians, starts to act according to Communist principles in a small German village.

The Murderers Are Among Us

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

Our Daily Bread

A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.

Mona Lisa Smile

Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.

M/S Gustloff

Joseph Vilsmaier Two-part TV movie focuses on the tragic events surrounding the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German passenger ship, at the end of World War II. On 30 January 1945, Captain Hellmuth Kehding was in charge of the ship, evacuating wounded soldiers and civilians trapped by the Red Army. Soon after leaving the harbor of Danzig, it was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine and sank in less than an hour.

Barefoot Gen 2

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

Red Fang: Blue Sonnet

Sonnet is a cyborg/esper from a harsh background and now trained to be the ultimate warrior and most powerful weapon in the world. She is sent to Japan to watch Komatsuzaki Lan, who is thought to be controlled by the rage of the esper Akai Kiba (Crimson Fang). Lan is a quiet girl who knows she's different from everybody else and starts to show signs of Crimson Fang after coming into contact with Sonnet. In the course of fighting with Lan, Sonnet starts to rediscover her humanity. At the same time Lan has to fight to retain her humanity and control the Crimson Fang.

One Love of My Soul

A Season of Giants

At the turn of the sixteenth century, Michelangelo (Mark Frankel), Raphael (Andrea Prodan), and Leonardo Da Vinci (John Glover) create their masterpieces, while dealing with religious persecution, political turmoil, and the discovery of America.

Requiem

When a young boy comes in to see a doctor abourt a red mark on his face, the doctor's wife welcomes him into the consulting room instead. As they talk, she offers him something to eat and then notes that his manner of eating is just like that of her previous husband, who died in prison many years earlier. It turns out that the young man had been his cell mate for a year, and he tells her the story of how her husband died. She then remembers (in flashbacks) how she had helped her first husband rid himself of his sexual repression, and how she had promised him she would marry her current husband if she were widowed. It seems her doctor-husband was a man who could remain untouched through any political climate, and was much admired by her first husband. Now that her memories have been awakened by the young man's account, she ignores the repeated phone calls of her current husband and decides to rid this young man of his own sexual repressions.

Der Untergang der Pamir

The story of the German sail-training ship Pamir that sunk in a hurricane.

Forbidden Games

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

Ashes and Diamonds

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

The Assault

At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.

Holding the Air

The story of a war-orphan, who remembers first post-war days, his stay in Home for war-orphans, his teachers, friends, and mostly his "only brother".

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

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