The Venus Trap

A journalist gets involved in a murder case in northern Germany.

An abstract look at the changes in a woman's inner self. Married to a down-and-out writer, she is forced into a liaison with a book thief.

An unsuccessful artistic director tries to raise money for a new opera house at a gala with celebrities from the worlds of culture and finance (and thus secure his own career) - an attempt that fails miserably.

Collage of dramatic scenes, some exaggerated to comic effect, with asynchronous sound from well known classic, operatic, and rock and roll music – with different approaches to love, suffering, and death.

French sailor Querelle arrives in Brest and starts frequenting a strange whorehouse. He discovers that his brother Robert is the lover of the lady owner, Lysiane. Here, you can play dice with Nono, Lysiane's husband: if you win, you are allowed to make love with Lysiane; if you lose, you have to make love with Nono... Querelle loses on purpose.

In a german suburb a babysitter is too busy with her own teenage business and leaves a boy with his little sister alone. Then the girl is missing. The only way the family and society are able to deal with the horror is to ignore it and hide the truth in the closet.

After pulling off a bank robbery two bandits meet in a deserted mining town to divide their loot but an old miner tries to steal it from them.

Anka, a student active in the extra-parliamentary opposition, has had enough of inconsequential discussions. As she no longer believes that she can change the world with words alone, she plans a militant action: as a protest against the Vietnam War, she plants a bomb in a Cologne department store to force the public into a debate.

Jimmy Orpheus is about a young day labourer at the docks. After a crawl through the late-night bars in the St. Pauli red-light district, he meets a prostitute, for whom he risks life and limb while walking around night-time Hamburg … A love story that is as poetic as it is realistic, with Roland Klick trying out various extravagant editing and camera techniques, such as jump cuts and time-lapse shots, as well as his idea of action movies.

Two life stories. That of Malou, a French woman, married to a German Jew, a refugee stranded in South America: a picture of the pre-war generation reflected in the unusual destiny of an individual woman. And that of Hannah, an alert, independent, modern woman, seeking after freedom and her own identity, and trying in present-day Berlin to save her shaky marriage.

Five women leave their husbands and discover an opportunity for an unusual new beginning. They devise a scheme for the selection of the "ideal male," but the plan is turned upside down when the women jointly hire a housekeeper.

Fearing being deported, Gabi, a young foreign girl looks for a husband and even has 5,000 German Marks for him. But within the free and marital environment of the commune, there are no candidates for a wedding.

Daniel, a young gay man, tries to pursue a traditional bourgeois relationship and lifestyle with his live-in boyfriend, but after their love quickly fades, he finds himself moving through different avenues of gay subculture, in pursuit of exotic pleasures.

Eva, an upper-class housewife, frustratedly leaves her arrogant husband and decides to enter the call girl business. She lets Yvonne, a prostitute, teach her the basics and both set out for prey together, until Eva starts an affair with Chris, who turns out to be a call boy, as well. Consequently, she moves into his penthouse, large enough for both to offer their services separately.

While out on the town in Berlin, Raymond sees and falls for Harlis, a star of a troupe of lesbian cabaret strippers. Attracted to a man for the first time, Harlis leaves her long time girlfriend and dance partner. Overwhelmed by jealousy and anger, his brother (Peter) and his ex-fiancee (Ria) are determined to sabotage this budding romance.

"Deutschland privat" is a special project by Robert van Ackeren, who in 1979 asked people to send him their 8mm home movies by placing ads in several magazines in Berlin, Germany. In the ads he announced that he was planning to blow up and mount the best of those movies into a feature documentary to be released in German cinemas. He was surprised how many home movies he received and how generously people allowed him to use them for his feature. Part 1 of "Deutschland privat" gives us typical German home movies of the 1970s, i.e. private holidays, family parties, etc. Part 2 consists of what is now called "amateur porn"; home made 8mm movies featuring real porn action.