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.

A surreal trip into the world of an extremely long german word.

A film inspired by one of Germany's most visited blogs. The author of the site www.notesofberlin.com, Joab Nist, posts pictures of real announcements, notes, information that people leave in the streets of Berlin. The film follows 15 genuine notes and protagonists. The result is 15 funny, tragic, fascinating episodes about people and the city they live in. Twenty-four hours from the life of the city. The story begins with a note attached to a street lamp, with the message “For one minute please just stand here in silence, look at the sky and contemplate how amazing life is”. Is it possible that only a very drunk young man notices the text and looks upwards? An extraordinary mood picture of present-day Berlin and a declaration of love for the city.

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.

Nina, a young actor, returns to the Ruhr region for her grandmother’s funeral. Tensions surface between her and her mother. The noises of a small town fill the eloquent silences in the complex mother-daughter relationships explored in this endearing film.

In a bubble of superficiality, Sandra carved out a sanctuary through her Sonic Flow, but now she faces difficult choices to be able to stay visible. Beneath the threat of fading relevance, a force within Sandra begins to stir: a portal to supernatural perception.

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.

“Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can’t agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city.” - Hartmut Bitomsky

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.

Real estate agent Christian travels the countryside scouting for investment prospects. In a forgotten, seemingly abandoned village far off the main roads, he finds more than he is looking for. Getting entangled in an encounter with a taciturn teenage farmhand, he confronts his sexual frustrations and, in the process, gets drawn into the undergrowth of a bloodthirsty rustic community.

A young photographer has fallen in love with his girlfriend's sister. Nobody knows quite what to do. A stylish variation on the problems of triolism made with striking stability of style and a great feeling for mise-en-scène.

A girl roams through the city looking for a place to sleep. Along the way she meets young mothers who celebrate motherhood religiously, goes home with an abstinent existentialist for whom sex is “just another market”, and waits for the end of capitalism in a drag bar. Her attempt to write a book doesn’t make it beyond the first sentence of the second chapter, and she finds no space between art galleries, yoga studios and the beds of strangers. Instead of trying to fit in, she starts regarding her depression as a political issue.

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.

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.

A son visits his father at his farm. While slaughtering a lamb, shortly before the son’s departure, the long-term alienation between the two comes to light. An accident occurs which briefly opens the possibility of a new beginning.

Melanie loses her entire family in a devastating arson attack. Overwhelmed by grief, she lives the day without direction, unable to find a way to heal herself. But when she meets the pregnant Katrin, she finds new hope.

Jakob, a young policeman from a remote village, has his world unhinged when a stranger in a dress emerges from the forest and begins killing villagers with a sword.

On a bleak island where monolithic concrete buildings rise above the windswept horizon lies work-colony #191286. Piwonka is one of a handful of migrant workers who are forced to work here under harsh conditions. He has been estranged for two months from his beloved wife when a fatal incident at the main drilling-tower occurs. Piwonka has a recurring dream of his wife where it feels like she's trying to communicate with him, to warn him perhaps, or guide his way.