Hans Kwiet

Documentary about Anton Chekhov and his descendants in Moscow. Vera Tschechowa, who is the great-grandniece of the poet and writer, meets with family members, writers, and theater professionals. Past and present merge into a poetic journey of discovery into a country that, until then, had been little known in the realm of artistic sensibilities.

The final installment in Ulrike Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy (following TICKET OF NO RETURN and FREAK ORLANDO) casts Delphine Seyrig as the nefarious Fritz Lang supervillain Dr. Mabuse, here the head of a powerful media empire that seeks to create headlines by manufacturing (and then publicly destroying) its own celebrity: the wealthy, handsome playboy Dorian Gray.

In this mystery/thriller based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, Nico Thomkins (Udo Schenk), a writer, and his wife Helen (Anke Sevenich) are in the habit of playing games with one another. Even while they are breaking up, they are sufficiently in tune with one another to continue this practice. When the writer's wife takes off without leaving a note behind, people begin to suspect that he may have murdered her, and he plays along with this notion to the point of planting clues which would incriminate him. Obviously, no one with a shred of common sense would do such a thing, and these tricks get him into trouble. However, his troubles don't really begin until he starts to search for her in earnest.

Spanning 1919 to 1982, in the fictional village of Schabbach, live Maria Simon and her family, whose lives and community are changed by historical events around them.