Chapeau Claque

Four young people dream of a simple life. In the middle of Berlin, they retreat to an idyllic villa with a garden, where they want to provide for themselves and lead an alternative lifestyle. But then an unscrupulous property developer wants to demolish the villa to build a modern residential complex.

After ten years, Hella Mayer and her boyhood friend Andreas meet again in Berlin on the street. Both know each other from common dance lessons times.

Interview film with the protagonists of the New German Cinema in 1966.

Short documentary on the making of Henry Levin's Genghis Khan, which filmed on location in Yugoslavia. The final film's epic battle scenes are contrasted with the mundane reality of life on a film set.

A man returns every year to visit his estranged family and friends in this drama dripping with biting social commentary. His 40-year-old buddies are part of the nouveau riche who consider themselves elite and are content to sandbag it at work. Teutonic sentimentality is lampooned, and the narrow minded are held up to ridicule. Some fine performances outweigh the passages of unintentional humor in this second film from director Ulrich Schamoni.

Manfred and Hilke live a live perfectly complied with each other in West Berlin. They managed to elude from the bourgeois conformity, which they loath. But when Hilke finds out about her pregnancy she estranges from her partner. Trying to keep her former life as it was, she desperately looks all over the city to get an abortion.

West Berlin, summer 1968: the attitude to life at the time through the eyes of (at least) three different quartets: the anarchic bards of "Insterburg & Co." wander through the backyards of Kreuzberg, passing the time with silly poems, homemade instruments and their playmates. The lively Jacob Sisters and their four poodles make guest appearances as international show stars in the luxury hotels. And postcard Berlin is presented by four oil sheikhs who are on a state visit.

A chubby-born young capitalist goes to the Riviera with three bums and casual laborers to successfully use his grandfather's surefire system in French casinos.

In March 1998 director and producer Ulrich Schamoni – who was dying of leukaemia at the time – documented life in his house in Berlin’s Grunewald district. Schamoni kept on filming until just a few days before his death. The result was a moving and colourful chronicle amounting to a total of 170 hours of tape. Interspersing a selection of these images with excerpts from Schamoni’s films such as "Es" and "Chapeau Claque", Schamoni’s photographer daughter Ulrike Schamoni and editor Grete Jentzen have created a loving tribute to a generous and multifaceted man.

Documentary about the current state of German cinema. Produced for German television.