Birte Schnöink

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

Heinrich wishes to conquer death through love, and when he meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance, she expresses interest in a suicide pact when she learns she has a terminal illness.

Hannah, a young Jewish girl, is rescued from a concentration camp by her Polish boyfriend, and believes he died after their perilous escape. More than 30 years later, the married Hannah faces an emotional crisis when she learns he's alive.

Lisa is moving. Upheaval all around: Her mother flirts with a handyman. An eccentric woman seems to be preparing for a glamorous event, a family next door returns from vacation, and a girl documents the adventurous day. As boxes are transported, walls painted white, and furniture is assembled, underlying problems in need of fixing are revealed, a to-do list expands, and desires and needs flair up.

An ordinary working day on a construction site. Thomas, a 40-year-old crane operator, receives a call from his wife asking him to pick her up from the hospital. He finds her crying.

Sophie and Georg once loved each other, but now they have split up. Almost the entire film takes place in front of the same doorway in Berlin. In an elliptical way, the individual scenes portray a family for whom the word patchwork is the new normal — and take a laconic look at the everyday irrationalities of love.

Kerstin is in great pain. Her daughter Juliane wants to help her die, but the law forbids it. Jessica Krummacher’s second feature describes the most important of events via tiny details that stay with us and get under our skin.

East Germany, in autumn 1999. Gudrun Pfaff is about to turn sixty when she finds out that the orphanage she grew up in is being sold to turn into a hotel, and she is willing to do anything to stop it.

The two washed-up TV stars Micki and Ginger and the unemployed physicist Reno try to kidnap a young woman. But one of the three kidnappers suddenly doubts the value of the money and drives his accomplices mad. The kidnapped woman is already missing. Three children from a good family are looking for their sister: the dutiful Junior, who counts up his day in seconds, his brother Adrian, who, by contrast, thinks life is one big family outing, and Sophia, the artist, who never finds the real thing in life.

Ilyas and Yasemin are a couple in love - until Yasemin is shot by an unknown assailant in their shared café. Ilyas' life, as well as that of their daughter Senna, completely falls apart. And as the police begin to link him and his deceased wife to the crime, Ilyas finds himself utterly bewildered. The longer the suspicions persist, the more he wonders: Was Yasemin truly the woman he loved?

Caro hasn't actually been able to do anything for a long time. As a nurse on a dementia ward, she has hardly taken any vacation in the last two years and has accumulated countless hours of overtime. But it is only when her dearest resident, Mrs. Rumi, dies that the barrel overflows: Instead of going to work the next morning, Caro goes to a locker at Frankfurt Central Station, takes out a packed, brand-new rucksack and simply sets off - without a destination, without a plan, without a cell phone and without any outdoor experience.

Three women, three generations, one house in the 'Altes Land'.