Fritz Lang

German director Gordian Maugg creates this curious documentary/reenactment of the life of Hans Warn, adventuring sailor-turned-photographer. Born in Bremen in 1899, the young Hans signs on to the good ship Herbert in 1914, but not before he persuades his mother to buy him a camera. What starts as a hobby soon develops into a passion. Soon Hans is documenting his life on the high seas and his ship's six-month capture during World War I. Later, Hans marries the girl next door, Wilma, but their family life is sporadic because of his seafaring career. Maugg uses a wide palette of cinematic tricks and devices to recall the early years of the century, including sepia tinting, decorative intertitles, distressed footage, and other idioms of early silent documentaries.

When a German businessman heads to Russia with his wife and son Stefan on a business venture following the end of the Cold War, he quickly finds that the way east and west do business differs greatly. In the meantime, his son Stefan forms a friendship with his father’s local business partner’s son Tengis.

French King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a document that had protected the rights of French protestants for almost one hundred years. The decision led to a mass exodus of French Protestants with many going to Prussia.

In 1929, on the shores of Lake Constance, zeppelins are being built in the small town of Friedrichshafen. Fascinated by airships, Robert gets a job in the assembly shop thanks to Thea's brother Konrad, with whom he has fallen madly in love. The trio spent all their spare time together, frequently accompanied by Karl. In 1937, obsessed with zeppelins, Robert, now the father of a young Jakob, abandons his wife. One night, Konrad died under mysterious circumstances when he fell from a ready-to-launch Hindenburg. A few months later, Robert also died aboard an airship. In the 70s, Jakob, then his own son, Matthias, in 2005, will successively try to understand what happened...

In 1936 Nazi Germany, a young, innocent apprentice, full of Olympic fever, leaves his rural village to see the ceremonies in Berlin. Upon arriving in the capitol, he meets a widow and a relationship blossoms. They spend an idyllic summer at her lakeside home, but the forces of totalitarianism cannot be held at bay and soon invade their lives.