Horst Knechtel

German boarding school student Pauli hopes to lose his virginity while visiting his father in Italy.

Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.

A six-part film series addressing the problems of rural Austria from 1900 to 1945. Contrary to the traditional "Heimatfilm", the Alpensaga detaches itself from typical clichés and tries to depict a critical view of societal structures of the time. World history is shown from the view of a peasant family living in a small village in Upper Austria.

A small carnival is in dire financial straits. Their show is attracting fewer and fewer paying customers, as their "attractions" are ageing, out of shape and beset by internal feuds and bickering. One day a beautiful young woman shows up and suggests a way of attracting customers: put on a strip show, with her as the main attraction. Her act attracts customers in droves, but it turns out that the girl has her own agenda, and it isn't to help out the carnival.

Some time ago, Robert took some photos of military action which are now endangering his life. He is on the run from those who would find their publication damaging and is headed for Syria, where he believes he will be safe. While in Istanbul, he meets a pop singer, a woman half his age who gives him the erotic charge of his life. He begins taking film of their bedroom encounters and says some pretty excessive things about how marvelous she is to him. Meanwhile, his local friends don't trust or like him enough to help him stay in Istanbul, and it seems that he will have to continue onward in his journey to safety.

When Peter Huber the proprietor of a Bavarian corner newsstand, wins a free trip to New York City in a magazine contest, he is overjoyed. Filled with romantic ideas from the movies, his actual encounter with the gritty realities of the Big Apple are sobering. Nonetheless, he is in for the adventure of his life. First, he meets Karola Faber, the German wife of a U.S. G.I. who has found life in the States not all it's cracked up to be: she has left her husband and makes her living through prostitution. Peter and Karola visit the local German emigré community's Oktoberfest, and win the festival's King and Queen crown. Their prize is a cow, which accompanies them on their further journeys in New York City.

This is the story of Sylvia, who loses her stepchildren on a shopping trip in Poland. For fear of losing her husband's love too, she is unable to tell him what has happened and returns home, pretending everything is fine. When he realizes that his children are missing, the father begins a desperate search. He is ready to give up anything in order to find them. Sylvia supports him in any way; she tries to comfort him and takes care of his hope's vulnerable flame. For the first time he really needs her. While the children are trying their best to get home, the police fail in detecting their whereabouts. When a very vague trace leads to Poland, the parents hit the road to find the children on their own.

The students at a school of hotel management repurpose the institute into a hotel with a show stage, double-cross the principal, the groundskeeper, and a grumpy millionaire, and cause so much mischief and confusion that, in the end, there is only one thing left to do: laughing to the bitter end!

In the Bavarian village of Schladerbach, the kobold Hatschipuh and his comrades live, of whose existence only Grandpa Reiter is aware. When the building constructor Lederer builds himself a new mansion, the subterranean settlement of the kobolds gets destroyed, and Grandpa Reiter sees himself forced to move them into his barn. But this abode as well is soon threatened: Since the farm is no longer profitable, Father Reiter plans to sell it…

Peter Sandmann, the charming owner of a marriage institute, is a brilliant matchmaker. His problem: all the candidates would love to share a table and bed with him straight away, but the lively mini-playboy is extremely reluctant to exchange rings. This inevitably leads to some turbulence in his love life...

When Edith Howland's husband abandons her for a younger woman, leaving her with their alcoholic son and his senile uncle, she begins recording details of an imaginary, much more successful life where she has friends and grandchildren. However, this diversion soon grows unhealthy when she becomes slowly convinced that the fantasies are real.

Tom steals Tina's love and money, and five years later they meet again by chance. Both wanting to get back what was taken from them, they dream of traveling to Cuba. In the end, however, they only manage to get as far as the Belgian coast.

The days of the Schlosshotel Seefels appear to be numbered. Hotelier Theo Frobenius is forced to sell his hotel to group boss Mertens in the face of massive competition. Frobenius learns that Mertens wants to secretly inspect the hotel. In order to drive up the price, the hotelier wants to make him believe that the business is flourishing.

Dave knows what it is to suffer. Especially when he takes the rap for a gang of motorbike thieves and ends up in jail. All for the love of Corinna, his beautiful girlfriend. Refused parole and nearly insane with frustration he makes a violent escape to be with her and strike back.

The production of a film requires recording equipment and financial resources, if nothing else. Hellmuth Costard places these basic prerequisites at the centre of his film: using a Super 8 camera system he developed, he films himself as he tries to raise funding for his film project. This creates an unconventional experimental setup, which reveals how the economics, politics, technology, and aesthetics of filmmaking relate to each other – with the ‘great’ Godard being called up as a kind of chief witness.

The 50-year-old haulier Kluth is left by his wife and falls in love with 15-year-old Anita, the daughter of the owners of his favorite pub. Anita's parents tolerate the relationship because Kluth supports them financially. But when Anita is expecting Kluth's child, they terminate their friendship and threaten to press charges. Kluth commits suicide.