Thomas Wendrich

Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.

An explosion sends fear and terror through Berlin. Young Maxi's home is reduced to rubble and ashes, burying her mother and little brothers. Only she and her father survive the terrorist bomb attack. When she happens to meet the charismatic Karl, who tells her about a conference for young people in Prague, she seizes the opportunity to flee Berlin and her grieving father. The political movement behind the meeting claims to be working for a better Europe. Maxi has no idea how close the murderers really are to her family.

A coming-of-age story set in Germany in the 1960s. Siggi becomes involved in a love triangle when he falls for Luise, but the tightening political climate forces him to make a fateful decision.

Set against the backdrop of post-unification Germany, the film explores the breakdown of relations in a decaying social structure.

Thomas Brasch was born as a German-Jewish emigrant in England in order to move to the young GDR with his family at the beginning of the 1950s. His father Horst is primarily interested in helping to build the new German state. But Thomas prefers to realize himself as a writer and in doing so discovers his potential as a poetic rebel. His very first play was banned and soon afterwards he lost his place at the film school. When the tanks of the Soviet Union roll through the Czech capital Prague in 1968, Brasch and his girlfriend Sanda and other students try to call for protest in the streets of Berlin - and fail. His own father betrays him to the Stasi and allows Thomas to go to prison. After being paroled, he continues to try his hand at poet writing about love, revolt and death. In the GDR, however, you don't want to have anything to do with someone like him.

"Maria am Wasser" tells a story of the search in symbolic allusions and beautiful, fairytale pictures. The search for love, past, reconciliation and forgiveness. Summer 1983 in Saxony. A tank drives with four children of the orphanage "Frohe Zukunft" through the Elbe. The excursion seems to end fatally for all children, as the tank sinks. 22 years later, organ builder Marcus Lenk returns to his home village of Neusorge and claims to be one of the children. Marcus is perplexed: no one recognizes him. Not even his father Hannes, who lives with a few sheep, nor his mother Mary, who runs the orphanage with a strict hand, believe in his identity.

Bertha Kinsky works as a governess in the Suttner household and has an affair with Arthur Suttner, the son of the house, who is a few years younger than her. When the affair is discovered, she is forced to leave the house and gets a job with Alfred Nobel. Nobel has become very rich thanks to the invention of dynamite. The somewhat reclusive Nobel and the prudent Bertha quickly take a liking to each other. But one day, Arthur Suttner appears on the doorstep, having broken with his family in order to marry Bertha. Bertha marries him and life drives the penniless couple to Russia, where they are confronted with the horrors of war. This experience turned Bertha von Suttner into a successful author on pacifism. She continued to cultivate a close friendship with Alfred Nobel. Nobel detested the war, but gradually realized that he could go down in the history books as a "warmonger" thanks to the invention of dynamite.

The consequences of the climate catastrophe are dramatic in 2034. Drought and floods destroy the livelihoods of millions of people. After the third storm tide in a row, the headquarters of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was evacuated. In a provisional interim building in Berlin, the climate catastrophe becomes the subject of legal proceedings. Two lawyers represent 31 countries of the global South, which are doomed to destruction without the support of the international community.