Kurt Barthel

After the death of their father, 18-year-old Helene Raupe (“coccoon”) and her younger sister Asta come under the guardianship of the youth welfare office in East Berlin. Helene fails miserably as a fishmonger, fashion assistant and bus conductor, all jobs ordained for her by the authorities. The young woman really only “emerges” in her fantasies, where she can escape from her dull, normal life.

Was it an act of sabotage or willful negligence? The non-party engineer Heinz Solter is suddenly arrested and accused of approving a defective pipeline that caused a half million loss to his company. At first, the case seems clear-cut for the state prosecutor, but when he probes deeper, he discovers that Solter had acted against his better judgment due to the pressure from his career-driven and authoritarian boss.

1936 in a small town near the Czechoslovakian border. Albert and Fritz are close friends. Albert lives with his aunt, who is loyal to the Nazis. His father, an anti-fascist, is in hiding, and Albert only sees him secretly from time to time. His mother is in prison. Fritz's father, a member of the Social Democratic Party, has officially withdrawn from politics. Fritz also does not know that his father is working illegally and is disappointed by his apparent inaction. Together with Albert, he tries to stand up to the Hitler Youth and the Nazi teacher Wagner. By hoisting the red flag on the town hall, he brings his parents into the hands of the Gestapo. His mother cannot withstand the brutal interrogation and reveals the name of a communist. The boys inform the man and flee with him across the border to Czechoslovakia.

After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him …

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North of Neuruppin lies the Ruppiner Schweiz, the smallest “Swiss” area on German soil. Fontane loved the seclusion and enigmatic appeal of this region’s landscape. As an idyllic recreational and holiday region, it attracts countless tourists every year. But the industry has left its mark: what were previously common sights in the wild can only now be found by vacationers in museums or small zoos. A film about a regional landscape, its history, and how people treat it.

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'Traumlos?' sheds light on future plans of three teenagers and young adults in a Brandenburg village. Realized shortly before the fall of the Wall, the film also captures the fears and hopes of young people in the last year of the GDR

Gathering in Thüringen for their annual rehearsal camp, music students from Frankfurt (Oder) and Zielona Gora celebrate the German-Polish friendship. They soon realize, even though music being the universal language, it takes more to really communicate with each other.

Around 1 billion apples are harvested every year in Havelland, one of the largest fruit-growing regions in the GDR. In order to obtain this quantity in good quality, a large number of preparatory and maintenance operations are required. There are also reports on apprenticeships and practical work in the "Havelobst Central Youth Object". Impressions of the 100th Blossom Festival in Werder as well as myths and legends complete the apple theme.

With ZUG UM ZUG Barthel creates an amusing as well as bitingly macabre image-sound collage about the negative effects of smoking.

On the necessity of safety measures on the workplace.

Experiments and interviews are used in order to illustrate the special duties of care when raising children with regard to their behavior in road traffic.

Zeitspiele is a playful satire about optimal time management in a company with countless side blows to the socialist planned economy.