Acting
Based on a switched identity, in circumstances that are found in real life as well as fiction, this drama tells the story of two soldiers fighting together in World War I. Karl (Joachim Latsch) and Richard (Hans-Use Bauer) become close friends while serving time in a German POW camp. One day Karl manages a successful escape and goes to Richard's home where he seeks refuge posing as Richard. But Richard's wife Anna (Kathrin Waligura) has never given up hope that her husband is still alive -- a possibility that would shatter Karl's proposed new life. In fact, Richard did not die in the POW camp. This film shared the Grand Prix award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival.
In a small town, everyone has tried to forget what happened shortly after WWII. That is, until a stranger finds a book that Jadup (Kurt Böwe) gave to the young refugee Boel (Katrin Knappe), who resettled in the town over 30 years ago. Painful memories about Boel and the post-war period begin to surface and shake up the whole town. Boel vanished back then and nobody knew why. Word spread about a rape and some tried to blame a Russian soldier. Jadup, the town's respected and popular mayor, remembers, though, how he mistrusted Boel and did not help her through this difficult time; HE didn't even notice THAT Boel loved him. Jadup's confrontation with the past gives him a new, critical view of his current situation and surroundings.
Franz Xavier Stannebein, a young boy at the turn of the 20th century, wants to do nothing more than fly. He carries this dream through his years at an orphanage and into adulthood as a merchant in Spain. He eventually invests everything he has into building his own version of an airship. He later meets some industrialists in Germany who want to support his idea, and they ask him to build an airfield in Spain. When he sees the Nazis use the field during the Spanish Civil War, however, he feels betrayed and goes to Germany to protest. There he is thrown into an insane asylum in Leipzig. After WWII, his grandson and other survivors of the family searches for him, only to find the empty asylum... Based on the novel Das Luft-Schiff. Biografische Nachlasse zu den Fantasien meines Grossvaters (1974) by Fritz Rudolf Fries. The non-camera animation in the film was created by internationally known director Lutz Dammbeck.
1945. Peace still bears the traces of war everywhere. There meet the animated girl Xenia and the former boxer Henry. Being together gives them a sense of opportunity. She wants to break away from the semi-world milieu, he try a comeback in the boxing ring.
The body of young Christa Gellert is fished out of the water in a small town on the Elbe in the spring of 1964. Everything points to an accident - Christa drowned while picking willow catkins during an official trip with town councillor Stegmeier and his colleague Anna Sell. That's what the people involved say, but then rumors start to spread. Detective Hans Gregor investigates. His boss Erwin Müller, who has known the councillor for many years, is unamused. When questioning the witnesses, Gregor only comes across hints. An exhumation of the dead is carried out. It is discovered that Christa was pregnant. Her colleague Helga, a former student on probation, knows about the councilman's relationship with Christa. But she is afraid to testify. Gregor has to fight his way through a web of dependencies, career thinking and mistrust until he solves the case.
