Holger Daemgen

A faithful retelling of the 1942 "Vel' d'Hiv Roundup" and the events surrounding it.

At the beginning of the 1940s, in a France occupied by Nazi forces, lived the Jewish Joffo family. Happy and tight-knit, she sees her future darken when all members of the family are forced to wear the yellow star. Fearing the worst, the parents organized their family to flee to the free zone in the south of the country. Maurice, twelve years old, and Joseph, ten years old, will therefore leave alone in order to maximize their chances of finding their older brothers already settled in Nice. The brothers left to their own devices demonstrate an incredible amount of cleverness, courage, and ingenuity to escape the enemy invasion and to try to reunite their family once again.

On operated by Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck the German Empire is finally founded in 1871 on the floors of Versailles castle, ancestral seat of the French monarchy.

It's the 24th of December: The emergency department of a district hospital is preparing for a turbulent night: head physician Professor Singer, who has lost his wife and is even more involved in the work, and the surgeon Hannah Cornelsen, who talks about the work can forget that she and her husband have dwelt apart. On Christmas Eve, the hospital will become a microcosm in which a wide variety of people and destinies will meet - and for everyone, life will be in a completely different light next morning.

In the motley final-year class 13e at Kepler School in Neukölln, children who have moved to the western part of the city legally as well as border crossers who live in East Berlin but commute to the West every day come together for lessons every day. After the school-leavers had completed their written exams in July 1961, they faced their oral exams after the summer vacation in September. But when the Berlin Wall was built in August, Berlin was divided and torn apart from one day to the next - including class 13e. The students from the eastern part of the city quickly have to make a difficult decision: should they attempt to cross the border or throw their dreams of the future to the wind?

An improvised personal project about identity and becoming an adult. A kind of summer diary where the younger sister Maria observes her bigger sister who lives in an unreachable realm of her own. The film has a playful approach to its language and was inspired by the director’s younger brother Christian – who as a child made several little fragmented films while being bored during a summer in the country side. A film about a secret language between sisters, the magic of small moments and naive self discovery.

Vormärz in Germany: Gisela and Walther, a maid and a servant - a predestined path of life, which Gisela rebels against. Her free-thinking spirit puts her in great danger. Is Walther going to join her on this dangerous path?