Käte Alving

Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.

A story about thirteen years old Kalle who is moving with the family from West Berlin to East.

All throughout his entire life, Friedrich Wilhelm Hoffmann let his career run roughshod over his personal life. He had no wife, because he was married instead to his chocolate factory. Now he’s old and gray, and his relatives, who are greedily waiting for him to kick the bucket so they can get their hands on his worldly goods, keep their distance from him. Then one day, an astonished Hoffmann is visited by a young woman named Brigitte, who asserts, that she’s his granddaughter. Suddenly, it all comes back to the old man: as a young man, he had a short, but intense, love affair, which he had to end on the insistence of his father.

Berlin 1952, seven years after WWII. Four women are looking for a good man and happiness in the divided city. Their destinies are loosely connected through one person: the West Berlin dandy and womanizer, Conny.

Professor Sonnenbruck is a scientist who is not particularly interested in politics. Even the meeting in 1943 with his former assistant Peters does not change him. He does not betray Peters, who has escaped from a concentration camp, but that is already enough for him. But after the war Sonnenrbruck gets into a conflict of conscience. He thought that science was finally free of politics again only to find the opposite happening at his university in Göttingen. A medical congress in the GDR brings him together with Peters, who is working on a major research contract there. Sonnenbruck decides to visit Peters.

There's a great deal of excitement on a small North Sea island: A millionairess has arrived, accompanied by her elderly secretary. No one knows why the lady is vacationing here of all places. It's particularly strange that Ellinor, as the sophisticated city woman is called, is snooping around everywhere. She's being watched suspiciously by all the islanders. But it's all just a game! In reality, the elderly secretary is a millionaire – his name is Jan Remmers, and he left his home island many years ago to pursue a career overseas. Now he's returned, but he doesn't want to reveal his identity until he's found out whether the community would welcome him warmly even without his millions. Unfortunately, Remmers discovers that no one is expecting him in his old home: His former fiancée, Berta, has married the fisherman Hinnerk, and his son, Peter, is a very independent engineer. Proud of his son, Remmers is secretly supporting a major construction project Peter is working on.

Combining documentary elements with a playful narrative, the film explores the evolution of bathing culture and social morals in Germany. Set in a summer resort where traditional values clash with more liberal attitudes, it humorously reflects on changing views of decency, freedom, and modern life.

A moving saga focusing on the women in a family that spans three generations and almost 70 years of German history, from the Wilhelmine period through the end of WWII. This film shows that it takes a combination of hard work, political consciousness and family work in tandem to face the tragedies of war, economic hardship and death.