Otto Mellies

In works like “Guide Dog Ruepel” (1962), Bärbl Bergmann was the first feature film director in the GDR to portray children in their often pitiless but also honest dealings with each other, something that was almost impossible in the documentary films of that period. But she also managed to sneak lessons on how to pursue educational goals with creative obstinacy into popular science films. Thus her educational piece about two boys who discover that magic, too, requires hard work, despite its rational approach, is far from disenchanting: The protagonists reach their conclusion via detours that take them through mysterious corridors, furtive looks through keyholes and bewitching dreams.

A former Olympic champion wants to compete in the Berlin Marathon one last time.

Every year, many Germans are preparing to spend their vacations in the sunny south. And they all have to use the same highways. And every year everything ends in a big traffic jam.

Frank and Simone have fulfilled a dream and live with their two children in a row house in the suburbs. They are a happy couple, until the day Frank is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The family is suddenly confronted with death.

Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.

1947: the Russians have uranium extracted from the newly founded SAG Wismut mine in the Ore Mountains. Among the miners is Kurt, who has become an enthusiastic communist while a prisoner of war in Russia and therefore hates his father, a convinced Nazi. Kurt falls in love with Lydia. The daughter of Soviet Major Burski was actually supposed to spy on him, but soon returns his love. However, this is not under a good star. A mining accident is in the offing.

Professor Wilkers saw the trip to Thailand as a welcome change. But already in Bangkok, the starting point of his research into the origin of the drugs whose abuse he is trying to combat as a member of an international commission, he encounters extreme contradictions. The Swiss doctor is tempted to solve them, as the claims of the rich silk manufacturer Tracy Blake sound truthful and bitter, yet extremely strange. Leo Wilkers decides to embark on a life-threatening venture: He moves into the mountains near the border with Burma. Up there, in the village of Muong Nan, whose headman is at the same time in prison in Bangkok worrying about who in the capital might be interested in his arrest, Wilkers learns about the necessity of poppy cultivation in these areas.

Inspired by West German terrorists, two pupils kidnap a teacher in East Germany.

Under the slogan of the arms race of the superpowers, which escalates in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and brings the world to the brink of nuclear war, two exemplary post-war male figures challenge an almost archaic feud: Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss and journalist Rudolf Augstein.

A group of tourists from the GDR spend their holiday at the coast of Bulgaria. When making a trip to a small fisher house, they have to stay they night, because the ship's motor broke down. One of the group proposes a game: Someone has to be a corpse, one the detective and another one the murderer. But shortly after starting the game the "corpse" has vanished only to befound at the foot of the nearby cliff - being dead for real. Now the group start their investigation...

In the GDR, purchasing a car was such a difficult process that many families applied for one years in advance. For example, Gisela secretly orders a Wartburg model after the birth of her first child. By the time the vehicle is ready, her daughter is a teenager, and Gisela's husband, who actually prefers walking, has already bought a second Wartburg from a friend in financial trouble. As a result, the couple decides to sign up for driving school together.

Puberty drama about the first love of a 15 year old girl from Berlin.

Documentary on the former border patrol sergeant Klein. Klein deserted in 1961, defected to the enemy and betrayed state and military secrets. He was caught by the security forces.

This film takes place during the Seven Years' War. The Prussian Major von Tellheim has become engaged to the Saxon noblewoman Minna von Barnhelm. After the war, the King - in an unwarranted move - deprives the major of his honor. Von Tellheim becomes impoverished and, filled with shame, breaks off his relationship to Minna. An innkeeper in Berlin, who is a police informer, makes the Major move to a shabby little attic because he cannot pay his debt. In the meantime, Minna has also arrived at the inn. She and her lady's maid Franziska are questioned and spied on by the nosy innkeeper. Minna has followed her beloved Tellheim and she now cunningly manages to elicit a new declaration of love from him...

Using contemporary artistic representations in words and pictures, the documentary intends to create an overall view of the historical significance of the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in the historical image of the GDR. In terms of content, the film is limited to the city of Wittenberg as the historical center of the Reformation events. This period is seen as the beginning of the early bourgeois revolution, as Luther also made a certain contribution to the replacement of feudalism by the rising bourgeoisie by initiating the reformatory efforts. Lucas Cranach the Younger's panel painting "The Reformers in the Lord's Vineyard" runs like a common thread through the documentary and thus vividly conveys to the viewer the social upheavals of the 16th century between the Reformation and the German Peasants' War.

Wealthy sawmill owner Reinhard Lorenz has two daughters who compete for his love: The older Manuela runs the company, supported by her lover, the authorized signatory Jens Mattern. The younger Katrin returns home from the USA for her father's 80th birthday to reconcile with the patriarch. Both sisters were in love with the same man almost twenty years ago.

A sociohistorical drama about the construction of the Simplon-tunnel: A conflict develops when German workers want to strike and fight for better working conditions while Italian workers simply want to earn money and provide for their families.

The son of a working-class man, Harry Brenner studied medicine at the ABF and quickly made a career as a doctor in Berlin. His lifestyle and his demanding wife swallow up a lot of money, so he takes on any part-time work. After a gross dereliction of duty, he is transferred to Bothenow. He meets Eva again, whom he knows from his student days and who now works here as a nurse. The two hit it off and Dr. Brenner slowly begins to change his life. In doing so, he increasingly comes into conflict with his wife. Their different views on life eventually lead to a separation.

Kerstin is a successful department head of a tax consulting firm in Berlin. She is respected and feared by her employees. Only one thing is too short in her life: for years she had no sex and no husband by her side. At the company, she wants to show that she can also party properly. The next morning, she wakes up in a hotel bed with two employees next to her: the hated opponent Simon and the "footman" Gregor. With the aid of her assistant Achim, she has lost all the memories of the previous evening. Her employees are forcing her to silence. Four months later, she realizes that she is pregnant and one of her nightmares is the father.

A teacher at a German high-school in the nineteen thirties has issues with his students who seem to be getting less human and more convinced of Nazi ideals as time goes on.

It's mom's birthday and her three daughters want to throw a big party. But everything turns out differently. It's not just because the divorced dad arrives a few days early and brings his much-too-young new girlfriend with him, or because the birthday girl has to stage the end of the world with her village theater group.

The criminalist Hannes Bergemann tries to blackmail the city where he spent his youth. After many years returning to the familiar places of his childhood, he hopes to meet again his old friends, especially Fred, Helmuth and Richard, with whom he had a close childhood friendship. When confronted with a murder shortly after his arrival and given the task of investigating it, he has the painful experience that his friends are involved in the case.

1523. The Protestant theologian Thomas Müntzer is entrusted with the pastorate by the 'Allstedt Council'. On the one hand, he is to open people's minds and hearts to more freedom, and on the other, he is to serve as an ally against the count.

After causing a deadly hit-and-run motorcycle accident, Conny Schenk spends two years in prison, where he is able to complete a printing apprenticeship and is released early for good behavior. While he is still on probation, money is stolen at the company where he works and everyone is quick to suspect Conny. Can he overcome his past mistakes and start fresh, or will the mistrust of his colleagues and friends become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.

Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.

German soap opera about the staff of the fictional hospital "Sachsenklinik" in the city of Leipzig.

The SOKO Köln investigates the cathedral city with humor and often with hard work. Their cases take them into a variety of environments, from the Cologne clique to the terraced housing estates on the outskirts of the city.

Der Staatsanwalt hat das Wort was an East German television series.

Stubbe – Von Fall zu Fall is a German crime detective television series starring Wolfgang Stumph as detective Stubbe. It is being broadcast on ZDF, the second German public television channel since 1995.

Bella Block is a long-running German detective television series starring Hannelore Hoger, first broadcast in 1994 on ZDF. In 2010 the 30th series was produced.

Murder, Venice, relationships...it's a delicious concoction in the hands of crime novelist Donna Leon. Venice provides the backdrop for the lush film versions of the bestselling novels, which features the indelible Commissario Guido Brunetti, canal boat rides instead of car chases, fine cuisine and crime investigations in one of Europe’s most beautiful locations.

The film is set in the 1930s in Germany. Maria Rheine and Mark Löwenthal, two young actors working in a small theater, are in love with each other. Their love affair is interrupted by Nazi racial policies; Mark is no longer allowed to perform in German theaters because he is a Jew. In order to continue acting, he joins the newly formed Jewish Theater in Berlin. Maria, who is not Jewish, faces no restrictions on her career, and she becomes a successful actress at a big theater in Munich. But her love for Mark eventually leads her to decide to sacrifice both career and security to remain close to him. She fakes a suicide, assumes a Jewish identity and, as Manja Löwenthal, joins the Jewish Theater.

Three members of the National Committee Free Germany form a secret commando that comes to Berlin from Minsk to take up the fight against the SS in the last days before the end of the war.

Drei reizende Schwestern is a German television series.

In the 21st century, a global socialist security organization is concerned over a new energy source, of possible alien origin, falling into the hands of one of the last remaining capitalist countries and turned into a super-weapon.