Eberhard Esche

East German documentary short about Somalia in 1976.

In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined and his calls for justice go unanswered, Levin leaves town.

Hans Fallada tells in his published after the war novel "The drinker" the story of the agricultural wholesaler Erwin Sommer, who flees from his narrow bourgeois relations under the burdens of the new times in the kingdom of the king alcohol, whose liberty and independence promises prove a lie - the only truth of the alcohol. On behalf of the WDR television play Ulrich Plenzdorf has adapted Fallada's 1944/45 novel for a film adaptation by Tom Toelle with Harald Juhnke in the main role of Erwin Sommer.

At the beginning of the 1960s, a German turns up on behalf of the NATO in the British village of Rocksmouth. NATO wants to establish a naval base in Rocksmouth, but first, the German envoy has to salvage an old ship wreck. In 1942, the "Princess of India" was supposed to bring children to safety in Canada but was sunk by a German submarine at departure. 58 people were killed, most of them children.

A documentary crew follows the December 1978 “big repair” at the Bernburg (Saale) cement works, normally shut only for maintenance, where management has cut the planned 16-day turnaround to 14, with a 15 000 M bonus (rising to 20 000 M if finished a day early). As cameras roll through cement dust, crew and workers discuss the twice-yearly overhaul, familiar crews, and gritty camaraderie. They learn that chronic spare-parts shortages force constant improvisation, and that bureaucratic red tape weighs heavier than the hardest labor. Amid pride in their long-running plant, workers confess simple hopes for health, peace, and family. By film’s end, the crew realizes the true “core” of the factory lies not in its machinery, but in its people’s hands and minds.

Anna, the witch girl, has one short leg and one long leg and is therefore only called the hobble witch. Anna trains until she is far superior to all the others in both running and sneaking races. When she even reaches the end of the world and outwits two clumsy giants who do not want any creature to escape from this terrible place alive, she realises that she can be proud of herself.

Helmut Kamp, the construction brigade leader, a man no longer young, life immediately confronted several difficult and woeful problems. The birth of a son, the tragic death of his wife, the relationship of his daughter Ingrid with Dr. Beißert coincided with the need to move to an uninhabited area where a nuclear power plant will be built. Kamp, Ingrid and the members of the friendly brigade decide to act as the duty and the feeling of partnership prompts them, and gradually they all become participants in the new construction...

On a forest road in the Brandenburg March, village teacher Potsch accidentally encounters the distinguished Professor Menzel, who got stuck there in his car. In the conversation that ensues, Menzel and Pötsch quickly discover that they both are great admirers of the early 19th-century writer Max von Schwedenow who was born in the area.

East German film about the history of Red Orchestra, a real life German pro-Soviet spy ring created after the rise of Hitler that turned into a resistance movement led by a leftist Nazi officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Arvid Harnack.

Berlin, 1948: Paralyzed and robbed of her memory, Fleur regains consciousness after a serious fall. The doctor treating her recognizes that her problem is of a psychological nature and encourages her to face up to her past. The daughter of a brothel owner is reluctant to look back: on a hapless childhood, her relationships with bon vivant Dr. Goldner and the politically committed locksmith Philipp (Hilmar Thate) as well as the difficult period of fascism... This exciting journey into the German past is based on Dinah Nelken's novel "Das angstvolle Heldenleben einer gewissen Fleur Lafontaine".

Four directors - four styles - four episodes, all relating the events of a single night which has entered the history books: August 12-13, 1961. There are thousands of complex narratives connected with the frontier drawn through the middle of Berlin, and each episode relates the story of a difficult decision made on that night...

A farmer receives land from the king and discovers a buried golden mortar. He decides to give it to the king out of gratitude, but his clever daughter warns him that the king will surely want him to bring a corresponding pestle as well. When the king throws the farmer into jail for fraud, he bemoans the fact that he did not listen to his daughter.

After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he escaped to West Berlin a few weeks before the Wall was built and hoped that she would follow him …

Photo model Monika Stange is found murdered in her apartment in a major West German city. Detectives Bentheim and Laube find rough diamonds hidden in the apartment. The trail leads to a racketeering ring and the influential industrialist Dr. Vogelsang. The latter is not prepared to get involved in the murder case under any circumstances and refuses to testify. Inspector Laube tries to solve the case without his colleague.

The "Concordia" trading company in Würzburg is a secret headquarters of the MID, a secret service agency of the US Army. For years, espionage, sabotage, and diversion operations originated from here in order to undermine the Socialist Republic of Germany. A favorable moment for a military attack approaches and plans are developed. These plans are placed in the hands of Major Collins, who keeps them in a safe. Hansen has worked for him for many years, but also for the Stasi as a double agent. Security Chief Colonel Rock knows there is a leak, but Hansen has passed every test thrown at him. He is trying to deal with his current assignment: acquiring the plans so they can be made public. His mission is to get them out of the safe and into the GDR without getting caught.

Bad planning and shortages prevail on an East German construction site. Foreman Hannes Balla uses unconventional methods to overcome the problems. New Socialist Unity Party secretary Werner Horrath is charged with bringing the rough-and-ready builder crew into line. The task seems doomed to fail as the two men compete for the affections of young engineer Kati Klee. But when she gets pregnant by married man Horrath, he is in danger of being expelled from the party, and Balla takes his side...

Vienna, 1813-1819: Beethoven (played by Donatas Banionis) is at the peak of his fame. Orchestras all over the world play his music, but he lives modestly and is dependent upon private patrons. Nagged by his patronizing brothers, spied upon by officials for his republican beliefs and faced by his progressive hearing loss, the composer becomes more and more isolated. Seeman’s poetic film explores the joys, heartbreak and artistic spirit of the great composer as he works on his Ninth Symphony.

Adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella for East German television, produced in 1965/66, not shown until 1972.

In an effort to rekindle their romance, Barbara and Ralph rent a secluded farmhouse in Yorkshire for Christmas.

A romantic fairy tale about love.

Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow worked for the railways his entire working life. He took up service at the small station of Luege 34 years ago. Now, the line is to be electrified and Platow, who cannot cope with the new technology, has to work on a secondary local line. Georg, his son, a railway worker as well, is to attend a training course, but Georg refuses to go. Then his father comes to a surprising and highly unusual decision. He pretends to be Georg Platow, making himself twenty years younger than he really is and registers for the course.

The film chronicles the last ten years in the life of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938).

In medieval Germany, poor and witty Till Eulenspiegel fools and cheats citizens, churchmen, and landlords. Although in most cases he uses his wit for personal well-being, he often helps the poor and weak. Eventually, he gains an influential but also dangerous position as royal fool at the court of the emperor.

The evil and powerful King Magus brutally subjugates the people of his kingdom. Anyone who does not want to submit is turned into an animal and locked in a cage. Magus kidnaps the girl Hanna, whom he wants to marry. But Hanna refuses, and her lover, the shepherd Elias, goes to the castle to free her. He learns from Magus' servant Pravos that a mirror gives the king magic power and immortality and that he can only be defeated by water from the Moon Lake. Elijah sets out on his journey to the Moon Lake. Will he withstand the dangers and finally achieve victory over the king? Wrid he be able to free Hanna and the whole kingdom?

Love, intrigue, favouritism and corruption at the Dresdner Hof.

Four-part miniseries about the theologian Thomas Müntzer, who became a revolutionary and opponent of Luther during the Peasant War in 1525.