The Trace Leads to the Silver Lake

East German adaptation of Grimm‘s fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin". A boastful miller pretends that his daughter Marie can spin straw into gold, and so she is locked into a room full of straw and ordered to spin it into gold by the next morning. A little man appears and offers his help in exchange for Marie's necklace. The greedy treasurer makes Marie spin twice more until the only thing she has left to give the little man is the promise of her first-born child…

A young boy Jampoll is spending the summer in his grandfather village where he fights criminals using his friends help.

The childless sisters Regina, Anja and Susanne are outraged. Their wealthy mother is determined to become a grandmother and offers her fancy villa as a reward for the first of the three daughters to give her a grandchild. But Anja has completely different plans: she is going to emigrate to Brazil with Karin, the love of her life.

Eight-year-old Andrea, known as Mücke, her brother Thomas and their parents intend to celebrate this year's New Year in a completely different way. They have rented a hunting lodge in the mountains and want to hold their very special New Year's Eve party here. But then a snowstorm hits, the effects of which are so extreme that the cabin is cut off from the outside world. Now parents and children are left to their own devices, finally able to spend some quality time together. But the four of them have differing views on how to do this, and they even get into arguments. Of course, they also have to deal with how to "survive" an unforeseeable period without contact with the outside world.

Ede falls in love with Unku, a girl from a travelling circus. Love cannot run smoothly however because Unku is a Gypsy. Various adventures take place before love is finally allowed to run its natural course.

The children of Herbert and Hella, two single train conductors, are going to vacation at Baltic Sea. Unfortunately the parents are to busy to go so the oldest sister is in charge.

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

A communist kangaroo moves in with an artist in Berlin.

Felix is at an impasse in his family life and his job. His wife Bianca wants a separation, his children are moving away from him and his hair is falling out. When he also loses his job, Felix finds himself on the edge of the abyss. That's when a mysterious stranger offers him three wishes.

Felix is on the edge. He has got just one thing on his mind: Valerie - his wife, who has recently left him. He returns to the place of their final break-up. Valerie's ex-lover Thomas is also here, but not for sentimental reasons. By chance the two men meet in a restaurant. By chance Felix discovers who he is facing. And then starts the inscrutable game.

A group of kids grow up on the short, wrong (east) side of the Sonnenallee in Berlin, right next to one of the few border crossings between East and West reserved for German citizens. The antics of these kids, their families, of the "West German" friends and relatives who come to visit, and of the East German border guards, all serve to illustrate the absurdity of everyday life on the Sonnenallee, and therefore throughout the former East Germany.

The November Revolution of 1918 in Germany, famine and social upheaval evoke a response from the young Soviet government in Russia. To provide food assistance, trains with bread are being formed. One of them, on the personal instructions of V.I. Lenin is accompanied by the young revolutionary Tatyana . On the way, she meets a former German prisoner of war, Kurt . A romantic relationship arises between them. The train with bread, despite all the difficulties, was delivered. In a clash with a detachment of counter-revolutionary German troops, Tatyana was wounded. She returns to Moscow, and Kurt goes to Berlin to continue the revolutionary struggle.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), five International Brigade soldiers of different nationalities are given a crucial assignment as their commander lies dying: they are to smuggle top-secret information across enemy lines.

In the last house just behind the western borders of Russia, between Paris/Texas and Korleput/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Cindy Sherman, Dogma 95 and Duma 2000, Frank Castorf directs his virst video production "Dämonen" ("Demons") as a sort of post-Soviet-panslavistic panopticon in his own dramaturgy based on Dostojewski's "Demons" and Camus' "The Posessed". All that in set designer Bert Neumann's industrial-designed bungalow (with swimming pool) built onto forbidding landscape.

Germany director Dani Levy filmed this comedy about Jewish life in today’s Germany along side the familiar east-west conflict. With it great success this film is a joyful comedy of humor and knowledge.

Edith and Wolfgang have led a fairly harmonious family life for many years, together with their son Danilo. Edith has long since got over Wolfgang's infidelity twelve years ago, which resulted in a daughter. Every now and then he visits 12-year-old Sandra, simply fulfilling his fatherly duties. But suddenly the girl appears at the door.

A young soldier enters Germany with Soviet troops at the end of WWII, feeling like a stranger in his homeland. As he meets Germans, he grapples with his ambivalence, realizing he is both a victor and one of the vanquished. His inquisitive nature leads him to confront the atrocities and lies he encounters along the way.

After aspiring poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his law exams, he's sent to a sleepy provincial court to reform. Instead, he falls for Lotte, a young woman who is promised to another man.

Paul Bacher is in crisis. If he could feel in the past as one of the most influential writers of his generation, he has long lacked ideas and impetus for a new great work. His reading tours are becoming more and more a sad affair with too much alcohol and too little public. Then Paul overflows in a drunken hitchhiker, flees first scared and later removes the body, without talking to anyone about the experience. But something is flowing in its interior. Paul starts to write again. The criticism is done, but the story about the death of a hitchhiker also arouses suspicion.

Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. But Marisa's convictions begin to crumble when she meets a young Afghan refugee, and she learns that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way.

The story of a 14-year-old boy's problems. Unable to overcome his parents' divorce, Steffen mutates into a "failure" and has to repeat year 7 at school. His mother and teachers are helpless and disappointed in the boy. He remains withdrawn from them and builds his own world by escaping to an old tower where he secretly writes poetry. Franziska, one of Steffen's classmates, is very fond of him and stands up for him; she fights for Steffen's fair treatment. Then the friendship between the two young people is put to the test by the boy's mistrust.

In order to catch a basketball from the favorite team of his girlfriend's spoiled son, Fred poses as a numb, wheelchair-bound fan. But when he catches the ball, he also catches the attention of young, attractive filmmaker Denise, who wants to feature an invalid fan in an image film for the team. Fred has to keep playing his role, while real invalid and really furious fan Ronny might call his bluff at any moment. Worse, still, love sets in...

In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women – one a Jewish member of the underground, the other an exemplar of Nazi motherhood.

The end of a summer, a sleepy fishing port on the Baltic Sea and the beginning of a great feeling that must not be: Shortly before the start of the new school year, the 18-year-old Christian falls in love with his new English teacher Stella Petersen. In a moment of unexpected lightness and freedom, in the dunes and seascape far away from the small town, Stella and Christian discover a shared longing and an attraction to each other, the intensity of which both overwhelmed. But soon after class has begun again, the secret relationship between the young teacher and her pupil threatens the scandal ...

Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp.

Maria, a young student sees her brother Dieter going to prison for sedition against the state. She starts an affair with Paul, a judge who turns out to be the one who sentenced her brother, which eventually leads to a confrontation.

When Angelika moves to Leipzig, she is forced to rent a room at Mrs. Häublein’s for a start, since her parents will not follow until a few months later. Fellow tenant Thomas, a philosophy student, is not at all enthused about his new, pretty housemate. Because of Angelika he has to move into a smaller room. Furthermore, he is annoyed at her many male acquaintances, without sensing that his aggression might be prompted by jealousy. When Angelika’s father comes for a visit, he asks Thomas to keep an eye on his daughter. Thomas takes this assignment very seriously and finally realizes that he has fallen in love with Angelika.

Monika and Johannes are married. With increasing frequency, their son Manni becomes the focus of their arguments. Since the two cannot agree to a compromise, they decide to break up. The ten-year-old Manni is supposed to spend four weeks with Monika followed by four weeks with Johannes on an alternating basis. They want to prove to each other who has the better parenting skills. The plan fails, however, because Manni is very good at playing his parents off against each other. When Monika and Johannes finally see through their son’s game, they realize that their way of life does not lead to better parenting and they conclude that good parenting can only be achieved if they work together.

Episodes from school, family and leisure time show how boys and girls build gender relationships, what influence school and home have on them, how their behavior changes and what conflicts can arise between parents and children. Second part of the "Relationships Between Boys And Girls" series.

A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German admiralty gives out orders for operation "Nibelungen", which would lead the German fleet into a suicidal attack against England and quell the revolutionary spirit, seamen and soldiers from different political backgrounds unite in protest.

A depiction of class conflicts in Germany between 1918 and 1945. The Spartacist Erwin is shot by officers in 1918, and his pregant working-class bride Marie begins a new relationship with social democrat Geschke. Erwin's son Hans grows up to be a communist like his father, leading to bitter hatred between him and his Nazi step-brother, while Geschke becomes increasingly resigned to the political situation in Germany. The three aristocratic officers who shot Erwin many years ago meet again during the Kapp Putsch, but their support for the Third Reich eventually leads each to their deaths.

This episodic comedy explores love in all its varieties.

This elaborate two-part television film features a section from the life of communist worker leader Ernst Thälmann. It begins with the bloody riots on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, in which police officers shot at demonstrating workers, and ends with February 7, 1933, when Thälmann appeared as a speaker at the illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in goat neck. This period was marked by the struggle of the Communists against the ever stronger National Socialists and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Frank, a tenth grade student, falls in love with his classmate Regine. His father is a well-connected plant manager in the GDR; Regine's mother is a single parent with four children. Regine wants to become a kindergarten teacher, but her grades are poor and she is not allowed to apply for technical college. Frank champions her and seeks an open discussion about these rigid regulations. But his criticism is nipped in the bud.

Alexander sits in the pub and wants to be left alone. The fake sailor Konstantin sits in the pub because he can't leave his fellow men alone. That evening, however, he has his sights set on Alexander and won't let up until he reluctantly tells him about his accident at work. After the accident, he is only good for desk jobs, which leaves the once perfectly healthy construction worker struggling with his fate. Unasked and uninvited, Konstantin provides the embittered Alexander with more than enough work by declaring him responsible for a long overdue road construction project in the municipality. The old man takes not only Alexander by surprise, but also the mayor. He had put off planning the project for far too long. Understandably, neither of them are thrilled, but now that things have got rolling, they have to act...

Weeks after the victory in Vietnam, first pictures of a new humanity are captured: old and sick people preparing for their future, children on their way to school.

Erich Kasulke and Rudolf Portmann are comedian stars of the former GDR. When the Wall falls, so does their success. Portmann becomes a successful businessman, while Kasulke tries to continue working on the comedy circuit - without success. When his wife also cheats on him, he decides to start a new life in Berlin. There he quickly meets his old friend Portmann, who has built up a huge company. He offers him a job. But Erich puts the entire company in danger...

Alma Krause is the proud owner of a thoroughbred French bully. Even otherwise, she nurses and harbors several two- and four-legged friends in her apartment - just as one would expect from a veterinarian's widow. Her nephew Heinz, on the other hand, is kind of beaten. Not as for the love of animals, that would fit badly to a nascent vet, but for a small animal practice, as the blessed uncle operated, he seems to have no ambitions. A future as a "Bazillenscheuche" in the cowshed would like to spare him again Aunt Alma. And she takes her appropriate action.

Irene Klaussen, a brilliant, tomboyish Berlin student, falls for new classmate Peter Lemke. To prove herself, she follows him, first to a school dance in a borrowed gown, then to a year’s stint on a remote oil‐plant construction in Granow. Ostracized at first, she wins respect under FDJ secretary Anton by mastering every trade and helping him study for engineering school. After returning to Berlin, she discovers Peter’s infidelity and, disillusioned, goes back to Granow, finding true partnership and purpose with Anton.