Closed Circuit

A former bank clerk conceives a one-man robbery at the bank he works. He had before established an alibi for himself pretending and declaring him legally dead. Further complications ensue when he rejoins his estranged wife.

This film with a marked ethnographic nature, which was filmed without a pre-established plan and with a script that crosses the lines of documentary and fiction, tells the story of a group of five Germans who arrive on a remote island in the South Pacific called Parapara and belonging to Vanuatu. Their aim is to prepare a publication on the lives of the inhabitants of this remote island. The tasks were personally assigned: one would study the language, another would study the fauna; another the traditions, institutions and family systems; another the plants and another the songs and stories. However, the blind trust in the western scientific objective clashes head-on with the values and customs of the natives. Therefore, from the very beginning, the head of the tribe does not cease to ask and express his surprise regarding some foreigners “who have not come to rob his land”.

An architect is assigned to modernize a squatted house in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. But then he meets a young student who is member of a grassroots initiative trying to preserve the quarter. He falls in love with her, although this puts him into conflict with his job. Following his heart, the architect soon changes sides and supports the inhabitants in their struggle against the real estate speculators.

Former swimming champion Johanna, now a pensioner, finds her life changes completely when she answers a lonely hearts ad and meets writer Johannes.

Lynn is a cheerful 22-year-old who works at a cafe and lives with her brother. Though she has no real direction in life, she is happy. Conversely, her boyfriend, David, is a career-driven swimmer who seems to care only about his training. Then Lynn meets Japanese exchange student Koji, and, though they speak different languages and spend most of their time together in silence, the two soon become closer than she and David had ever been.

A story about the continuity and collapse of history, the power of suppression, and the terror of reconciliation; loyalty, treason and revenge. In a brave cinematic game, Heinrich Böll’s story Billiards at Half-Past Nine is split up into cracks, blocks, breaks and sudden turns, as the life story of a German family, covering numerous generations, is propelled forward.

A man and two women are trying their luck in the red room in the countryside. The older (but therefore not wiser) Fred, freshly divorced as a kisser who still desires his ex, meets the self-confident Lucy, who feels called to explore the soul of men in her novels. She lives with her intimate friend Sibil in a Vorpommern house in the countryside. Fred decides to move from Berlin to the two women and try a ménage-à-trois. They get to know each other and themselves.

A young man gets caught up in criminal activities in order to fulfill his desire for an easy life.

The obscure philosopher Georg Hermes almost withdrew from the world to concentrate on his studies, especially Heraclitus, having no relationship since his mother's death. When he wants a new suit for a lecture (actually very minor) about his new book, he meets the sisters Franziska, Breate and Marthe, who run a boutique, share a house and have a lover each. Those invite Georg to dinner, Franziska even on dates. Falling off a boat he gets naked with her, and they become lovers. The girls all take to Hermes and get him to move in, spoiled by all and offered polygamy.

Thomas hitchhikes from Hamburg to Munich where he meets his ex-girlfriend, Peggy. Thomas doesn't have a bed for the night and goes home with Peggy, not knowing that she and her four roommates have all made a strange pact.

Andy and Sebastian want to make a lot of money in a quick and easy way. Inspired by the movies, they become private investigators. Their first case happens to be about a beautiful girl called Annabella. But being a private investigator is a more demanding job then Andy and Sebastian had initially thought. Their female acquaintances Annabella, Christa, and Micky also have their share in Andy′s and Sebastian′s problems. The two wannabe detectives become more and more entangled in things that prove to be too much for them.

A couple (Karin Thome and Eberhard Klasse), whose relationship can't hold up to the pressure of their financial and career problems, only have their child left as the remaining connecting link. But even their child becomes a pawn in their egoistic power games and possessiveness. The crisis reaches a peak first then, when the husband finds out about an affair that the wife is having and sets out to claim the same rights for himself. This takes him to New York, where he settles. The wife gets her hands on all the cash reserves and follows him there. In spite of the new location, they still remain a couple with a disturbed and insensitive miscommunication, that instinctively cling even more to each other in the new and alienating environment.

Mary and Marquard are painters and lovers, with a common life. Once Marquard gets a prize of a considerable sum of money, his artistic creativity wanes. While Mary works in a series of paintings, Marquard visits his friend Gregor, a horse breeder and philosopher, sleeps with Angie and visits repeatedly her daughter Lucia. Marquard and Lucia, who have begun a tender and compassionate father-daughter relationship, spend two days in a seaside hotel, deciding not to speak in words. The feelings and communication emerge from a very special way. Mary, who does not know the whereabouts and the reason of the absence of Marquard, realizes it by herself: their love is over. Then, she abruptly interrupts her work so far and starts a new painting entitled "The visible and invisible."

What would happen if you gathered all the lovers you have had in your life in a single room and let them interact for a week? For his 60th birthday, a self-absorbed composer, Adam, does just that: he assembles seven of the most influential women from his life and invites them to his seduced lakeside cabin. The guest list includes Adam's current wife Eva, along with their two children who live in Berlin; his gorgeous second wife Lulu, who is an actress; and his down-to-earth first wife-turned-nun Berenice, with whom Adam has an embittered, estranged son Billy, who shows up along with his wife. Also invited are a quartet of women with whom he had often overlapping trysts, including student Marion, sexy Jacqueline, opera singer Lucia, and of course, Lilith.

Novellist Venus lives with her family out of Berlin and moves temporarily to the city where she is starting to write a new book. Her fans can watch her via a webcam. Away from husband and children she begins an affair with Fabrizio...

The first film in Rudolf Thome's "Forms of Love" trilogy is the most incisive. It's a comedy-drame chronicling the ups and downs in the relationship of an unmarried couple (Adriana Altaras, Vladimir Weigl). When she tries to persuade him that they should have a child, he escapes the controversy by becoming preoccupied with his new aquarium and microscope. Their struggles to settle their differences and accept new responsibilities are presented intelligently, realistically and with low-key wit and irony.