Reinhard Michalke

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…

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), five International Brigade soldiers of different nationalities are given a crucial assignment as their commander lies dying: they are to smuggle top-secret information across enemy lines.

This elaborate two-part television film features a section from the life of communist worker leader Ernst Thälmann. It begins with the bloody riots on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, in which police officers shot at demonstrating workers, and ends with February 7, 1933, when Thälmann appeared as a speaker at the illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in goat neck. This period was marked by the struggle of the Communists against the ever stronger National Socialists and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Alexander sits in the pub and wants to be left alone. The fake sailor Konstantin sits in the pub because he can't leave his fellow men alone. That evening, however, he has his sights set on Alexander and won't let up until he reluctantly tells him about his accident at work. After the accident, he is only good for desk jobs, which leaves the once perfectly healthy construction worker struggling with his fate. Unasked and uninvited, Konstantin provides the embittered Alexander with more than enough work by declaring him responsible for a long overdue road construction project in the municipality. The old man takes not only Alexander by surprise, but also the mayor. He had put off planning the project for far too long. Understandably, neither of them are thrilled, but now that things have got rolling, they have to act...

In the 1930s, the Soviet ship "Chelyuskin" embarked on an expedition to the Northern Ocean. But soon there is an accident in the ice and the team can save themselves on an ice floe. Two months, the over one hundred people have to persevere there until rescue from the air finally approaches.

The children of Herbert and Hella, two single train conductors, are going to vacation at Baltic Sea. Unfortunately the parents are to busy to go so the oldest sister is in charge.

A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German admiralty gives out orders for operation "Nibelungen", which would lead the German fleet into a suicidal attack against England and quell the revolutionary spirit, seamen and soldiers from different political backgrounds unite in protest.

Alma Krause is the proud owner of a thoroughbred French bully. Even otherwise, she nurses and harbors several two- and four-legged friends in her apartment - just as one would expect from a veterinarian's widow. Her nephew Heinz, on the other hand, is kind of beaten. Not as for the love of animals, that would fit badly to a nascent vet, but for a small animal practice, as the blessed uncle operated, he seems to have no ambitions. A future as a "Bazillenscheuche" in the cowshed would like to spare him again Aunt Alma. And she takes her appropriate action.