Barbara Gass

A renowned and sensitive poet and writer is fed up with the crudenesses of his native Bavaria and, in a well-publicized move, says he refuses even to die there.

An anxious teacher (played, as is the lead role in all his films, by the director) sits in a beer garden on the hill of the Andechs monastery. While flies drown in his mug of beer, he confronts a life of failure: the wife he ignored, the child he neglected, the teaching duties he has shirked, and his doomed efforts at winning tenure from school officials. Only a dream from the past-the memory of a former liaison with a film star with whom he shared "the Andechs feeling, a feeling that we are not alone" - provides sustenance. Despite an unexpected series of events, longing in Achternbusch's world ultimately remains stronger than fulfilment and thirst better than beer.

After several years in a coma, the Comanche, an Indian, wakes up in a Bavarian hospital. But reality does not match the dreams he had of it during his coma: it seems bleak and barren to him. The Comanche shows the audience his view of everyday life in Germany, with a collage of images and language demonstrating the absurdity of this reality.

A man who is dissatisfied with his senseless existence in his family-life and social status steals the uniform of a policeman and then enters the Oktoberfest. Now he is somebody, he is important, he can help, people respect him, etc. His wife, other relatives and some friends start to follow him while he gets some new acquaintances.

Munich Heinz and Herbert wants to escape the torturous confines of their home by swimming across the Atlantic.