Variation

Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.

Due to the accidental death of Pichler Bauer his wife Ilse, Granny Burgi and especially the youngest daughter Anna are suddenly alone on the mountain farm. Contrary to expectations and traditions, Anna inherits the farm. A well considered decision of the father: For Anna wants to stay mountain farmer, to preserve the inheritance of her father. In contrast to her mother and her uncle. In order to receive her father's farm and to be able to cope with the heavy and exhausting work, Anna hired a Bosnian guest worker, a Muslim, as a servant. They manage to continue the successful business on the farm.

The reality the conscientious objector Roman is confrontend with at an old-age home is something he has previously been spared: suffering, frailty, death. He has to take care of "General" Kulat, an old Wehrmacht officer, a fanatic militarist. Their confrontation becomes war.

Berlin during the Nazi reign: Young music student Ursula is a talented musician and a fervent admirer of the "Führer". When she is asked to assist renowned composer Broch, who was ordered to compose a cantata for Hitler′s 50th birthday, it first seems like a dream fulfilled. Over the time, Broch and Ursula fall in love, and her relationship with the former communist gradually changes Ursula′s perspective on the realities of Nazi Germany. But falling in love with a Nazi means a huge moral conflict for Broch.

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

A couple of stories revolve around the last days of a stripclub called 'Mau Mau'.

Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.

In Hamburg, German-Greek chef Zinos unknowingly disturbs the peace in his locals-only restaurant by hiring a more talented chef.

Austrian journalist asks her editor to send her to Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to investigate disappearance of girl.

Vienna, 1937, on the eve of the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. The young and inexperienced Franz Huchel begins to learn about both the joys and hardships of life by working as an apprentice to the mutilated war veteran Otto Trsnjek in a small tobacco shop, where he meets the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, who will become a valuable friend in times of chaos and uncertainty.

In Munich 1955, German film star Veronika Voss becomes a drug addict at the mercy of corrupt Dr. Marianne Katz, who keeps her supplied with morphine. After meeting sports writer Robert Krohn, Veronika begins to dream of a return to stardom. As the couple's relationship escalates in intensity, Veronika begins seriously planning her return to the screen -- only to realize how debilitated she has become through her drug habit.

During WWII, head priest Henri Kremer is mysteriously freed from Dachau. He learns that he can return home to Luxembourg, for only nine days, during which he'll have to face a persuasive Gestapo chief who will put his faith to the test.

Two young and attractive social workers/nuns bring fresh air into a city missionary station, but are also challenged by lust and money, offered by a millionaire.

Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic. As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they found dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.

An unconventional essay film that interrogates the visual and ideological legacy of the Vietnam War. Blending staged scenes, archival footage, photographs, and philosophical dialogue, the film follows various characters — including an American soldier captured by North Vietnamese villagers — as they reflect on violence, memory, and image-making. Set partly in West Berlin and partly in reconstructed spaces representing Vietnam, the film avoids traditional dramatic narrative in favor of a fragmented montage of voices, documents, and reenactments. Interweaving love stories, political debate, and historical commentary, Farocki creates a critical reflection on how war is represented, seen, and imagined, both in cinema and in public consciousness. The result is a complex meditation on images as weapons and instruments of perception.

Twelve classmates meet up again after thirty years. They chat, banter a little - and suddenly the mood changes. Because it turns out that the envied manager Iris is terminally ill...

Katharina and Sonja meet by chance on a train journey to Klagenfurt. Sonja, who wants to prepare for an exam, invites Katharina to live with her. The two different girls get to know the equally opposing men Thomas and Peter. Beyond the little holiday flirtations, Sonja and Katharina discover that they fell in love with the same man in Vienna...

Fat German star restaurant chef Gregor shows romantic interest in waitress Eden Drebb. She's happily married to hunky Xaver Drebb, but feels romantically neglected. Gregor's deserts seduce her, first trough her brat daughter Leonie, to spend time with him and his fabulous dishes. That soon becomes a rather platonic affair, and domestic troubles. Xaver decides to exact revenge on Gregor, with tragic results.

Vienna, the 1950s. A childhood captured on 8mm film, documented by thirteen-year-old Johanna.

Filmed for television, this production adapts Molière’s Dom Juan (or The Feast with the Statue), following the final days of the libertine Dom Juan Tenorio as he seduces, deceives, and provokes those around him. His servant Sganarelle serves as a constant companion and observer, accompanying Dom Juan toward the reckoning implied by the play’s statue motif.

When Johanna's blind grandmother Ruth tells her the secret about their Jewish past, the “sleeping dogs” of the family history awake.

Two urban, liberal couples in their 30s decide to help a Russian friend escape to Austria. Though initially thrilled by this adventure, the Austrians soon find the very foundations of their friendships and relationships are threatened.

Four years have passed since Bogdan left the Pichlerhof and Anna remained heartbroken. At first glance, the farm with its "three-women economy" is well there. Neighbor Gerhard builds on a common future with Anna. Then suddenly Bogdan reappears. He has made a career and wants to ask Anna - the woman of his life - to come with him. The encounter surprised both and brings everything out of balance.

Two young Europeans - Eva, a journalist, and her cousin, Mike, a filmmaker, want to make a film about the secret cult of the Makonde in Mozambique: "Magic Africa". On the hunt after the secret cult, Eva becomes aware of the heritage of colonialism: unemployment and civil war. Mike has only one thing in mind - to sell their travel film.

Linda is a headstrong woman. She marries and lives with her husband Paul in the Ruhr area. But 12 years of marriage do not make Linda happy. She dreams of seeing the sea and is constantly in search of fulfillment. Her husband doesn't understand her. Instead, he goes his own way. They have three children together, but Linda continues to live in her own world. A few days before her dream of the sea comes true, Linda dies in an accident at a freight station.

Elation in Neustadt: by the means of a little witching, Bibi Blocksberg saved two kids from burning to death. While her mother Barbara, a witch of flesh and blood herself, is very proud of her daughter, father Bernhard, overworked and stressed, disapproves greatly of her supernatural antics. Then Bibi gets a message from Walpurgia, the senior witch: she is going to receive her crystel ball, that will make a "real" witch of her, early. Proudly, Bibi jumps up her broom to fly to the Blocksberg, the witches' headquarters. But Rabia, one of the few evil witches, aging in misery and with a secret, begrudges her all the glory...and her youth. And so Rabia sets off events that will soon make Bibi's life fall into pieces.

The artists Käthe Kollwitz, Otto Dix and Otto Nagel used different forms of expression, but had the same goal: fight against war, against exploitation and for the liberation of oppressed people.

When Mary's husband dies from a freak accident, her estranged in-laws show up at her doorstep. She offers them a room and in doing so invites an unimaginable evil into her home.

Poor Bibi - due to her bad marks in maths she has to spend the whole summer in the boarding school of Altenberg to scrape through a series of exams - otherwise she'd stay down in school, being forced to repeat the year. No camping, no white-water rafting, no vacation at all. So it doesn't surprise anyone that the young witch is quite disgruntled when arriving at Altenberg Castle. Her roommate is a touchy unpleassant fashion victim and headmaster Quirin Bartels is so muddle-headed that he can't even remember the names of his students properly. But then Bibi makes friends with Elea, a girl wheelchair-bound since a terrible accident where she also lost her beloved parents. Now Bibi is determined to help the sensitive Elea, searching a way to heal her from her palsy legs.

A feuilletonistic conversation with the movie audience about the question: How do you feel about going to the movies? In general - and especially in summer? What do people expect from movies these days and what criticism do they have on their minds? The interviewees are vacationers of all ages and tastes. The occasion and background for this not entirely serious survey is the 1965 Summer Film Festival, which is captured in a cheerful reportage style. Interviews with actors on the festive opening evening and climax of the film confirm that there is only a relative cinema fatigue. It depends on the quality of the film on offer.

A musician seeks a peaceful vacation in a Vogtland village but is soon overwhelmed by requests for a symphonic composition and a pop song for a local dance band, leaving him with no time to relax.

Documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.

A policeman suspects that several bizarre deaths in the same family were murders and that the killer is a mysterious woman who just moved to the village.