Der Zirkus kommt

In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.

Sabine Wulff is almost 18 when she is released from the juvenile detention center. She doesn't want to return to her unsupportive parents or to her former boyfriend Jimmy, who got her into trouble by persuading her to steal cigarettes. She instead chooses to begin an honest life by getting a job and renting her own room.

Young people living in a children’s home in Mecklenburg talk about their unstable home situations and domestic violence. Many of them have alcoholic parents and some are in danger of going down the same path. They speak openly about the past and their hopes for a better life. The documentary follows the young men and women within the group and in search of personal space. A party to start the summer holidays marks not only the end of the school year – it also means that an entire class will be taking leave of the home forever.

The documentary reports on the goings-on at the only GDR racecourse in Berlin-Karlshorst. Pensioner Herta Rogau, who has been in charge of a betting counter for 15 years, tells how she came to this work and why she never dared to gamble herself. Her assessment of betting, gambling addicts, losers and winners enriches the footage shown of people at the betting counters, in the grandstand and of the exciting battles of the sulky drivers on the track.

Susi works in a large depot for waste paper, which is bundled and loaded onto trucks for recycling.

Portrait of the two main actors of the children's film "White Cloud Carolin", Andreas Roll and Constanze Berndt. They are observed and interviewed on several days during the making of the film. The two children introduce themselves directly to the viewer and talk openly and self-confidently about how they came to make the film and about their experiences during the course of filming.

DEFA documentary on the residents of an East German children’s home, banned until after the fall of the Berlin Wall

The filmmaker tells the story of her own grandmother, who died in a home, full of longing for her granddaughter. Being forgotten by sons and daughters, by the young, the beautiful and the successful is the fate of the elderly in this era.