Udo Samel

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

The Seventh Continent

Chronicles three years of a middle-class family seemingly caught up in their daily routines, troubled only by minor incidents. Behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, however, they're planning something much more sinister.

Domain

Nadia is in her late 30s and begins a serious relationship with a teen named Pierre.

No Hit Wonder

Daniel is a singer who became famous overnight thanks to one song. But for the aspiring artist, the dream of fame was short-lived: his song turned out to be a one-hit wonder, and Daniel fell into a deep depression when his subsequent songs failed to connect with audiences. Daniel soon finds himself with few options left – he wants to end his life. However, his suicide attempt fails and he ends up in a secure psychiatric ward. He is allowed to leave on one condition: he must use his music to make a group of depressed people happy.

Kaspar Hauser

In May 1828, a feral boy aged around 16 was found in Nuremberg. Kaspar Hauser, as he is called, can only speak a few indistinct words and knows nothing about his origins or family. The film depicts the - presumed - circumstances under which Hauser was held captive in complete isolation in a hiding place from infancy onwards. From this emerges the picture of an intrigue involving high circles of aristocratic society. Five years after his liberation, in December 1833, Kaspar Hauser died as a result of a stab wound inflicted by an unknown perpetrator.

Back to Square One

Movie-making cliches are parodied in this German comedy which features to warring actresses, meddling producers, indulgent directors, and an ignored writer. Not only must they contend with each other, they must also deal with the bankers who have the power to shut them down at any moment. The story begins at the premier of director Viktor Rote's newest film "The Tin Cat," which stars his popular wife Riki Rote. The film's writer and Viktor's brother Richard is miffed when he is not allowed into the screening. Viktor's ambitious mistress and aspiring star the Nina is also not invited in. The film is a hit so Rote is allowed to begin his new film by producer George Kuballa. George is also head of the studio. His rich and frequently rejected wife is Lore, a major financial studio backer who prefers spending her time consorting with her handsome young chauffeur.

The Killer Condom

In New York City, detective Luigi Mackeroni investigates a string of mysterious penile mutilations at the Hotel Quickie. After Mackeroni attempts to have a tryst with a gigolo he meets in the lobby, a carniverous condom bites off his right testicle and flees, which sets the detective off on a quest to stop the predatory prophylactic once and for all.

Carlos

The story of Venezuelan revolutionary, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who founded a worldwide terrorist organization and raided the OPEC headquarters in 1975 before being caught by the French police.

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

The Seventh Continent

Chronicles three years of a middle-class family seemingly caught up in their daily routines, troubled only by minor incidents. Behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, however, they're planning something much more sinister.

Domain

Nadia is in her late 30s and begins a serious relationship with a teen named Pierre.

No Hit Wonder

Daniel is a singer who became famous overnight thanks to one song. But for the aspiring artist, the dream of fame was short-lived: his song turned out to be a one-hit wonder, and Daniel fell into a deep depression when his subsequent songs failed to connect with audiences. Daniel soon finds himself with few options left – he wants to end his life. However, his suicide attempt fails and he ends up in a secure psychiatric ward. He is allowed to leave on one condition: he must use his music to make a group of depressed people happy.

Kaspar Hauser

In May 1828, a feral boy aged around 16 was found in Nuremberg. Kaspar Hauser, as he is called, can only speak a few indistinct words and knows nothing about his origins or family. The film depicts the - presumed - circumstances under which Hauser was held captive in complete isolation in a hiding place from infancy onwards. From this emerges the picture of an intrigue involving high circles of aristocratic society. Five years after his liberation, in December 1833, Kaspar Hauser died as a result of a stab wound inflicted by an unknown perpetrator.

Back to Square One

Movie-making cliches are parodied in this German comedy which features to warring actresses, meddling producers, indulgent directors, and an ignored writer. Not only must they contend with each other, they must also deal with the bankers who have the power to shut them down at any moment. The story begins at the premier of director Viktor Rote's newest film "The Tin Cat," which stars his popular wife Riki Rote. The film's writer and Viktor's brother Richard is miffed when he is not allowed into the screening. Viktor's ambitious mistress and aspiring star the Nina is also not invited in. The film is a hit so Rote is allowed to begin his new film by producer George Kuballa. George is also head of the studio. His rich and frequently rejected wife is Lore, a major financial studio backer who prefers spending her time consorting with her handsome young chauffeur.

The Killer Condom

In New York City, detective Luigi Mackeroni investigates a string of mysterious penile mutilations at the Hotel Quickie. After Mackeroni attempts to have a tryst with a gigolo he meets in the lobby, a carniverous condom bites off his right testicle and flees, which sets the detective off on a quest to stop the predatory prophylactic once and for all.

Carlos

The story of Venezuelan revolutionary, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who founded a worldwide terrorist organization and raided the OPEC headquarters in 1975 before being caught by the French police.

Goodbye Berlin

Maik, a fourteen-year-old teenager, sets out on a road trip during summertime with Tschick, a new classmate, in a stolen car. The two share life changing experiences during the eventful journey.

Faraway, So Close!

A group of angels look longingly upon the life of humans. Berlin now is a very different place: unified in name but overrun with crime, corruption, and—in what turns out to be a key theme here—Americans.

Go for Zucker

Germany director Dani Levy filmed this comedy about Jewish life in today’s Germany along side the familiar east-west conflict. With it great success this film is a joyful comedy of humor and knowledge.

The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch

The young Orthodox Jew, Motti Wolkenbruch, finds himself at a turning point. His beloved mother wants him to get married and presents one marriage candidate after the other. Unfortunately none of the woman pleases him, because they all look just like her. The situation gets even more complicated, when Motti secretly falls in love with the non-Jewish girl Laura, a so-called Shiksa.

The Story of My Wife

A sea captain makes a bet in a cafe with a friend that he will marry the first woman who walks in.

Friends Forever

Set in the midst of World War II and interspersed with beautiful choir music, the horrors of the war unfold when the Germans realized one of the boys in the choir is a Jew and they must find him immediately.

Palermo Shooting

After the wild lifestyle of a famous young German photographer almost gets him killed, he goes to Palermo, Sicily to take a break. Can the beautiful city and a beautiful local woman calm him down?

My Best Enemy

Poland 1943: An unlikely pair - a concentration camp prisoner and a captain in Hitler's notorious SS - free themselves from the wreckage of a crashed SS airplane. The two appear to be strangely familiar with each other and the extent of their extraordinary relationship is thrillingly revealed.

Inspector Dupin: Brittany's Tide

Myths of the sunken city of Ys leads to the murder of a young couple.

Das Zeugenhaus

Witnesses about to testify at the Nuremberg War Trials needed a safe place to wait. All under one roof, each with their own secrets. And the countess assigned to take care of them. What was her secret?

Inspector Dupin: Brittany's Pride

An eccentric former actress finds a body which disappears into thin air.

The Last U-Boat

Near the end of WWII a lone U-Boat is sent from Germany to Japan carrying plutonium needed for a Japanese A-Bomb. During the long journey, news arrives on the radio that Hitler killed himself and Germany has surrendered. This causes a rift in the crew, the Nazi Party members wanting to continue to Japan since they are still at war, while the others just want to surrender or return home.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.

The Death of the White Stallion

This somewhat superficial historical drama is about the 1525 Peasants' War in Germany when the lower classes rebelled against oppressive conditions imposed by the clergy and nobility and then committed many acts (including atrocities) that did not morally set them far apart from the people they were fighting. It was a time of upheaval: Martin Luther (1483-1556) had broken away from the Catholic Church, calling for reform, and Anabaptists in Germany, like Thomas Munzer fought on the side of the peasants (opposed by Luther). This complex age and its political and religious turmoil are summed up in a story about an attack on a small monastery whose monks used a forged document to confiscate some land from the peasants. When their wrong-doing is revealed by the monk who forged the document in the first place, the peasants attack.

Die Braut

The relationship between Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great German writer, and Christiane Vulpius, a village girl, is one of the instantaneous and fiery passion. They lived together for 28 years, 18 of these living in sin, 10 a married couple. Christiane's rival, Charlotte von Stein, a former favorite of Goethe, begins plotting and scheming against her. Christiane puts up with countless insults and humiliations like having to 'disappear' with their son into the servants' quarters and to stay at home on official occasions. Goethe marries her when she saves his life during an attack by plundering Napoleonic soldiers. Her new social position as Goethe's wife is resented and envied by all. When she is openly attacked by the snooty, jealous people, Goethe is only half-hearted in coming to her defence. But she stays with him for he is her great love, even when she turns to the charms of many youthful admirers...

Strauss II: Die Fledermaus

Glyndebourne's pulsating new production of the Waltz King's much-loved comic operetta. Its story centers on a magnificent masked ball, given by a Russian prince, that brings together all the main characters in various disguises. The three-act journey from boudoir to ballroom to jail provides ample opportunities for farce and humor, but also for genuine human emotion and a surprisingly realistic view of urban life.

Scene of the Crime

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.

Derrick

Derrick was a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein, who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings.

A Case For Two

Ein Fall für zwei is a German television series, which premiered on September 11, 1981 on ZDF. The series, located in Frankfurt am Main, features two main characters who solve crimes: a defense attorney and a private investigator. Josef Matula, a former German police officer, has gone into private business. His method of investigation is very effective and direct, and he sometimes even resorts to dirty tricks. Claus Theo Gärtner has portrayed the role since the start of the series.

Babylon Berlin

Beneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties.

Danni Lowinski

Danni Lowinski is a former hairdresser who has graduated in law. When she does not get a job at a law firm, she starts to give legal advice from the basement of a shopping mall.

Kommissar Stolberg

Stolberg is a German detective television series, starring chief inspector Martin Stolberg. The series is more serious and less flashy than other contemporary German detective series.

Ostfriesenkrimis

Headstrong but successful Chief Inspector Ann Kathrin Klaasen and her team use unorthodox methods to investigate cases against the backdrop of the beautiful and tranquil landscape of the North Sea coast.

Joachim Vernau

14: Diaries of the Great War

When war broke out in Europe in 1914, most people thought the conflict would be over by Christmas; they could not imagine how wrong they were. An attack in Sarajevo ended up becoming a snowball that swept the world: a new kind of warfare had begun, waged with techniques and means never seen before. By November 1918, ten million people had died and the political map of the planet had been redrawn.

End of Innocence

End of Innocence is a two-part television film that focuses on the work of the German Uranium Association during World War II. At Farm Hall in England, the ten German nuclear scientists interned there as part of Operation Epsilon learn of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. In flashbacks, the development of the German uranium project is recapitulated chronologically from the discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn to the work of Kurt Diebner at the Heereswaffenamt to the experiments of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics under Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker at the Haigerloch research reactor in spring 1945.

Durchreise – Die Geschichte einer Firma

Mit meinen heißen Tränen

A three-part Austrian television film about the life of composer Franz Schubert. The title of the film is a quote from Erstarung (Immobilization), the fourth song in Schubert's song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey).

Sturmzeit