Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB)

In the 15th century, a young goatherd living alone in a mountain hut feels a dark presence in the woods.

December 1999. I remember that, amidst the Millennium Bug anxiety, I went to the birthday of Enrico, a kid who lived with his family in an old and isolated farmhouse.

The story of a seemingly settled bank employee who breaks the shackles of his everyday life and becomes a wanderer between worlds. Frederik is an up-and-coming young bank employee who lives an ordinary life. When a bank customer, whom Frederik has denied a loan in the face of the bank crisis, shoots himself in front of Frederik, he snaps. Together with ex-con Vince,he begins to live out a new, dark side of himself. He robs his rich bank customers' homes and gives the money to the needy. The initial rush of crossing social boundaries soon develops into an addiction to ever greater thrills.

In the Georgian riverside town of Kutaisi, summertime romance and World Cup fever are in the air. After a pair of chance encounters, pharmacist Lisa and soccer player Giorgi find their plans for a date undone when they both awaken magically transformed with no way to recognize each other.

After many years apart, Emilie meets her brother Jakob again. She not only shares her sadness about the loss of their parents with him, but also a secret...

The undercover investigator Robert is supposed to win the trust of a criminal through a fictitious relationship with Leni. However, the feelings are not just a game. It is the spied criminal, of all people, who makes him confront his contradictory feelings…

An accidental meeting in an elevator at a department store leads two older women to their limits and forces them to improvise by the time the elevator gets stuck.

Elena is a student in Minsk. She is having an intense but self-destructive love affair with Viktor. When Elena's father goes to prison she has to take charge of his business dealings to help him. She drives repeatedly into the restricted zone at Chernobyl, behind the wheel of a truck, in order to smuggle contaminated steel. The conflicts with Viktor escalate, and Elena is increasingly captivated by the zone's deceptive beauty...

A depiction of the Wrangelkiez neighbourhood in Berlin. The people portrayed tell their life stories. One woman came to the neighbourhood a decade ago to work in Berlin’s still unfinished Brandenburger Airport, one man reminisces his childhood on a Tobacco farm in Kentucky, another speaks of an exceptional day in an otherwise monotonous workplace. These portraits are interwoven with the story of Elpi, a Greek woman who is waiting for the long overdue visit of an old important friend. The outcome of this mixture is a film which captures the lives and perspectives of some of Wrangelkiez’s most commanding citizens, while at the same time evoking the loss that change and time passing means for places and for people.

A concise blast of feminist film making, Sander's first film is a tense yet playful four minute short that dissects a typical urban scene at a bus stop on a busy street in Berlin.

When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.

SHH is the story of friendship being put to the test. On the night of a school party, four girlfriends are waiting to be questioned by the school's principal. The bond between the girls appears to be strong and unbreakable. One of them however seems to be under more pressure than the rest.

Clearly influenced by Brecht and Jean-Marie Straub, criticizes the reduction of human relations to economic relations as well as the US imperialism in Vietnam.

Gerd Conradt films men carrying a red flag in a relay race through Berlin, to hoist it on the balcony of the current Mayor’s seat. A cinematic experiment based on Eadweard Muybridge, Andy Warhol and New American Cinema. A study in men, movements and a symbol. This is the 7th part of this series of film exercises. The other 6 parts were staged by Harun Farocki (Part 1), Carlos Bustamante (Part 2), Helke Sander (Part 3), Holger Meins (Part 4), Wolfgang Petersen (Part 5), Philip Werner Sauber (Part 6).

17-year old Sarah, filled with adolescent angst, is an extreme person who in her rehearsals with a theatre group is transformed until she is almost in a trance, and her performances at home or elsewhere verge on excess. A cold, intellectual father, a timid mother, a younger sister and an older brother who has left home complete the picture: a silent time bomb.

Martin leaves his protective parents’ home and comes to Berlin as a law student with high hopes. He finds a tiny, run-down flat in a strange, dark apartment block, from which the previous tenant has disappeared without a trace. Having no luck with social contacts at the university, Martin quickly falls for his mysterious landlady Simone, who lives just next door behind a thin wall. Hoping to find trust and intimacy, Martin loses himself in the house’s disturbing world of sex and violence. Deep in the walls, Martin discovers the true horror of his first love.

Three young men kill two policemen after a chaotic bank raid; a problem which forces the trio to make a desperate escape across the border to Poland.

Kathi is 30 years old, a single mother and a luckless actress who is regularly turned down at auditions. While Kathi doesn't know how to get her life on track, her mother Chris is a successful psychoanalyst. Chris doesn't take her daughter's career choices seriously, and constantly tries to give her good advice on everything. One day, Kathi's father suddenly appears after 15 years of absence and wants to reunite the family. Confronted with the past, Kathi gets the unexpected chance to address the ongoing conflict with her mother and to set new goals for her future.

After five years in prison, Ellen is ‘’out’’ and ready to come to terms with her past. She begins by looking for Katrin, who was present the night of the crime. Hearing Katrin’s voice on the radio and learning that she is a DJ at a local nightclub, Ellen decides to go and wait for her at the door. At first, Katrin is frightened and does not want anything to do with Ellen. However Ellen persists. Flashbacks fill in the history of Katrin’s relationship with an abusive husband and her intimate relationship with Ellen. It soon becomes clear that Ellen’s devotion for Katrin is no less potent than before. Gradually Katrin yields to Ellen’s wishes. Before long, past events catch up with them an unexpected sting in the tail reveals a major twist.