Ingrid Resch

Across generations, a single instrument connects people from different eras - from an emigrating zither player in the Bavarian Forest in 1881, to the persecuted and the lovers of the 20th century, to a deaf young woman in present-day Munich - weaving them into a polyphonic, musical hymn to memory, loss, and solidarity.

The owner of a hotel at the river of a lake lives deeply embittered since his girlfriend disappeared in mysterious circumstances more than 20 years ago. But when one day he sees on television a young woman with a remarkable resemblance to her, he decides to hire her. Her presence increases his sick obsession to recover his lost love.

Based on H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time, this is the story of a professor who suffers a seizure which results in total amnesia. As he recuperates he is so different his family deserts him. He gathers knowledge of things outside his specialty for five years, then has another seizure. When he reawakens he is himself again, but now he has no memory of the five years between the attacks. He begins having bizarre dreams, and tries to find out what he was doing during the five years he can't remember. What he discovers, combined with the growing reality of his dreams, convinces him that something much darker than a mere personality shift was going on.

Shortly before his 80th birthday, a former doctor takes his own life. Auscultating the consequences of the tragedy on those closest to him, this is a delicate drama on a social subject rarely tackled on screen.

She has her life firmly under control - but then the unbelievable happens. For seven hours, Hanna, who works as a psychotherapist in a Bavarian high-security prison, is taken hostage in her office by one of her patients. She is at the mercy of her tormentor, whom she has recently made a positive prognosis, and is raped several times. While the SEK Hanna, who is standing in front of the door, looks to safety, a convicted rapist destroys the life of a wife, mother and self-confident, cheerful woman. After the fact, nothing is as it was.

Although Volker is one of the less privileged people as a parcel deliverer and single father to his son Benny, he tries never to let his good mood be spoiled. But the miserable pay increasingly pushes Volker to his limits. When his son wants to move back in with his mother, Volker gives up something no one thought he could do - his integrity. He takes advantage of an opportunity that presents itself to make quick money.