Die Ilse ist weg

The quiet life of an extended family is shaken up when a circus comes into town.

Father Brown is only too happy to interfere with the work of the police in solving tricky criminal cases, usually with resounding success. That's why the clergyman is transferred to a sleepy island called Abbott's Rock. At first, nothing happens there, but somehow Father Brown seems to be attracted to crime: Soon a gang of thieves is up to no good on the island. So Brown makes the headlines again, and is punitively transferred once more. This time he finds himself in a quiet Irish millionaire community.

Countess Franziska "is kidnapped" by a band of robbers. However, her father is not willing to pay the ransom so Franziska changes sides.

Friedrich Schiller, a respected baker in Einbeck, enjoys a seemingly idyllic life with his wife and nine children. As he approaches his silver wedding anniversary, he nearly succumbs to a fleeting liaison with a spirited woman named Lollo. Though the episode ends harmlessly, it awakens a crisis of conscience in Friedrich, threatening the harmony of his devoted family.

A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.

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 teen girl in 1970s Berlin becomes addicted to heroin. Everything in her life slowly begins to distort and disappear as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute.

A reporter is murdered while driving to his job. The Police are contacted by a clairvoyant who saw the death in a vision, but some dark force is preventing him from seeing the man behind the crime...

After the death of her abusive father, lonely librarian Martha finds herself caught up in a strange, sadomasochistic relationship with a monstrous husband whom she begins to suspect may be trying to murder her.

10-year-old Rosmarin von Stetten lives with his widowed father Robert in the big city. During the holidays one day in the morning Rosmarin goes to the lake near the castle and meets Thymian, the poorest boy of the village, whose mother did not come back from the war and who has to do several jobs in the village for his living. The boys enter a boat, but both fall into the lake. Thymian crawls out of the water first and is found by a servant from the castle, who thinks he is Rosmarin and bring him to the castle and to bed. The boy doesn't know what happens and thinks he's spellbound...

East Germany's contribution to the 1957 Cannes Film Festival was the wartime melodrama Betrogen bis zum Juengsten Tag. Had the film been released in the U.S., the title would probably have translated to Duped Till the Last. The film condemns the Nazi mindset by concentrating on a particularly odious cover-up. When his son is involved in the accidental killing of a girl, a Gestapo general pulls strings to save the boy from prosecution. The general manages to pin the blame for the killing on a group of Russians, whereupon he gives the men under his command carte blanche to round up and execute as many innocent Russians as they wish. This act of brutality is contrasted with the pangs of guilt suffered by the son and his co-conspirators.

Mysterious deaths are occurring in Basel: people are dying out of the blue in public with no apparent cause of death. The coroner, Professor Rüegg, the cantonal doctor Zäslin, and politicians are at a loss and becoming fearful. There are even serious considerations to cancel the upcoming carnival. Rüegg's assistant Andreas Zinstag, who is also dealing with the deaths, lives with his uncle, Jean-Jacques Zinstag, a retired doctor. The latter begins to take an interest in the mysterious deaths. Among his friends, Zinstag develops the theory that people are not dying from a specific disease, but from "death" itself. The Grim Reaper himself is making his presence felt in Basel, as he once did in the Dance of Death.

A dramatic reconstruction of the July 1944 attempt by German Army Officers to assassinate Hitler with a bomb and end the war before Germany was totally destroyed.

Winnie is desperate and doesn't know what to do next. She is about to marry her lover Paul, who has returned from war captivity. Both want to emigrate to America short after marriage. But the young woman has an illegitimate one-and-a-half-year-old son, whom she has kept secret from her fiancé. The short-tempered Paul would never understand that. When she is on her way to the orphanage, the grumpy senior civil servant Hieronymus Spitz and his little dog Tobby get into her train compartment. After a short observation, Winnie is certain that the misantrope actually has a good heart, because he lovingly takes care of his dog. Without further ado she leaves little Niki with the tax accountant and disappears from the train. Only a note with a request remains. The overwhelmed old gentleman initially wants to get rid of the child, but then takes it home and takes care of it together with his housekeeper. Both take the bundle of joy to their hearts. But then everything turns out differently.

Jochen Epstein is released from prison after serving 15 years for murder. He is determined to emigrate from Germany and leave the past behind him forever. But familiar places, repressed memories and a never-forgotten girlfriend break the armor that the old man has built around himself. It all began on his last night in freedom: during a chance visit to a Christian service, Epstein believes he recognizes his former concentration camp tormentor Giesser in the parish priest.

Comedian Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet, five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are Jewish.

A doctor marries his seemingly incurable patient to fulfill her last wish. A serum he develops saves her, and the union born of compassion develops into a loving marriage.

A documentary that focuses on the making of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun".

The story of Jacob Fabian, a somewhat liberal Berlin advertising copywriter who witnesses the collapse of the prewar German society during the 1930s.

A murder in a winter sports hotel jolts Inspector Eyck out of his cozy, relaxed holiday mood. He rushes to the scene, where he encounters crime writer Gorgas, who, as he says, conducts "crime scene studies." But this case isn't fiction, because a dead man lies on the ground. Eyck immediately begins his investigation, which initially yields little insight. And the prime suspect, Gorgas, also has a watertight alibi.

In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.

DEFA crime film about the smuggling of PVC across the (still open) border from East to West Berlin.

Revealing story about the mysterious Nazi organization "Lebensborn," which was intended to serve the SS in pursuing population policy and racial hygiene goals by systematically producing "hereditarily valuable" children. The film depicts an anti-Hitler Knight's Cross recipient with false papers who becomes a witness and victim of relevant events in a Lebensborn home, where 30 enthusiastic BDM girls and a number of SS hooligans and frontline soldiers have just moved in to "give the Führer a child."