Wolfgang Winkler

East Berlin, 1989: 30-year-old photojournalist Georg follows a beautiful, mysterious dancer Miss Albena. Blinded by love, he dreams about her. His imagination and reality – a world in the midst of radical social change – get mixed up.

Irka and Raya are best friends, one always knows immediately what the other wants. Irka is young, lively and a girl, Raya is old, blind and a proud mare who had great times as a show horse. The two are inseparable. But when Raya has a foal, Irka turns her attention to the small, helpless and cute animal. Her father had actually promised that she could keep both horses. One day, however, he tells her that she has to part with one of the horses. Irka has to decide for herself: The cute foal or the old mare?

A young soldier enters Germany with Soviet troops at the end of WWII, feeling like a stranger in his homeland. As he meets Germans, he grapples with his ambivalence, realizing he is both a victor and one of the vanquished. His inquisitive nature leads him to confront the atrocities and lies he encounters along the way.

East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Konrad, who has become a reputed Astrophysicist, tries to take advantage of scientific congresses outside Eastern Germany to arrange encounters with Sophie. But in a country where the political police, the Stasi, monitors the moves of all suspicious people (such as Konrad's sister Barbara and her husband Harald), preserving one's privacy, ideals and self-respect becomes an exhausting fight, even as the Eastern block begins its long process of disintegration.

Twenty-year-old electronics technician Liane, desperate to escape her broken home, resists a demotion at work and falls for research student Jürgen. Fiercely defending colleague Kalle against unfair accusations, she overshadows her own troubles, including an unplanned pregnancy. When Jürgen betrays her, Liane collapses, and she wonders if a new beginning with steadfast Kalle is possible.

Dr. Michael Mangold is truly enviable: He works successfully as a surgeon in a Leipzig clinic, has a fancy apartment, is very good-looking and is about to be promoted to chief physician. Then his best friend Dr. Jörg Klein asks him for help. Dr. Klein runs a practice in the countryside and is looking for a replacement for two weeks so that he can attend a congress in Stockholm. Michael accepts and is looking forward to the change. But as soon as he arrives in the idyllic setting, his peace and quiet comes to an end: he falls head over heels in love with the beautiful policewoman Lena Stern - Dr. Klein's future wife!

When their ship is sunk in the Indian Ocean during the first world war, 50 men have to cross infinite stretches of sea and desert, avoid enemies, find allies and finally make it home to Germany. A breathtaking real-life odyssey.