Siegfried Seibt

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…

Susanne is a young single mother who lives a somewhat "carefree" lifestyle. After quitting her job, she finds herself in trouble financially and attempts a minor insurance fraud to make ends meet. Despite its rare view of everyday socialism from a woman's perspective, East German officials were critical of this frank portrayal of a less-than-ideal socialist citizen and turned down all invitations for the film to be screened abroad.

Joe and Benny are two cowboys on tour in the Wild West as a singing duo, usually without a penny in their pockets to spare. Joe is a talented rodeo-rider, which fascinates the little girl Susanne and gives her the wish to have him as a father. Her mother Maria, however, is to marry the evil, rich farmer Dave. Susanne wants to stop the wedding, so she sneaks aboard Joe and Benny's wagon to persuade them to intervene. Dave brands them as kidnappers, forcing them to flee as outlaws to one of the families tyrannized by Dave. Together, they strike back at Dave, at which point Maria sees that he's the wrong man for her.

Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.

The doctor has prescribed Herbert plenty of exercise in the fresh air. Hunting is his new hobby. The pride of his wife Margot has a sudden end when it comes out that leisure activity is anything but hunting passion.

A master thief returns home. There he is threatened with the gallows if he fails to solve the tasks set by the count. So he has to steal the count's personal horse, the bed sheet and the wedding ring as well as the priest and the sexton.

Oliver is in the 4th grade. He hasn't been paying attention in magic class and gets a big, fat five on a test. He has to have the work signed by his parents, but he is ashamed and doesn't want to cause his parents any grief. So he tries to get rid of the five with magic or at least turn it into a three. He manages to create talking guinea pigs and singing geese, but the five remains. The other children are already angry with him because he has no time to play with all the magic exercises. And so he decides to confess his mishap to his parents. His mother shows him how he can turn the five into a better grade - and that has to do with learning.

1944 - Soviet prisoners of war work under inhumane conditions on the Tharau estate in East Prussia. After a hunting trip, an illustrious circle of friends of the house and SS officers meet there. Anne, a non-political rendant who works at the manor, finds herself in a conflict situation, as her humane thoughts and actions are met with a wall of incomprehension. She tries to help ease the lot of the people suffering there. Threatening clashes ensue, which are exacerbated by the approaching front...