Franziska Breite

Unsuccessful actor Ben unexpectedly becomes the full-time parent of his nine-year-old daughter, Zoey, whom he has only seen every other weekend, after her mother is hospitalized following an overdose. Shot over a span of ten years, ZOEY & BEN follows their journey through life's triumphs and setbacks, charting Ben's transformation from a self-absorbed dreamer into a compassionate family man, and Zoey's evolution from a traumatized little girl into a confident young woman.

What a curious plan of Lya. Putting sleeping pills in the morning tea of her father. Pulling the sleeping wheelchair user to the vegetable store of her brother and attending secretly the acting exam. And all this only because Lya thinks that eight years of caring for her father where enough tribute to the family.

A lighthearted look at the opening of the border crossing of Bornholmer Straße in Berlin from the point of view of the confused border guards.

Since rock star John Winter has completely turned his life around and is happy, he has stopped writing hits - much to the chagrin of his manager Grobsch, who is in a real pickle as a result. He therefore instructs his assistant Lou to get John back on track. Lou comes up with all sorts of ideas and seems to be successful. But then John wants to give up music for good.

Having failed to get into the police force, Margarete takes up training as a security guard. One night she runs into a sexually agressive ex-colleague who insists on hailing a taxi to take her home to his place. Enter Tiger: short brown hair, a tough girl and a fighter, the cab driver. Realising that the situation is far from consensual, Tiger speeds off with Margarete, leaving her companion standing in the street. It won’t be the last time she rushes to Margarete’s aid. Tiger lives in an attic flat with two men. She knows how to wield a baseball bat. Stealing a uniform from security and renaming Margarete ‘Vanilla’, she begins to steer her life in a completely different direction.

The last years of Heinrich George's life are reconstructed with documentary footage and play scenes. His son Götz, named after Heinrich's favorite role of the peasant war hero from Goethe's play "Götz von Berlichingen", plays scenes from his father's life and allows his enormous creative power to shine through. Nothing is left out, nothing glossed over in this story of a man with many facets. Götz George, one of Germany's best-known actors, is at the center of this homage, which is also a reappraisal of the contradictions in his father's life. As the only follower from the acting profession, Heinrich George had to pay with his life. He was not officially rehabilitated until 1998.

Ferdi thinks he's ugly – but likes the fact Jona is interested in him. Maybe because she's blind. What Ferdi doesn't suspect: She's just pretending to be blind to be able to live cheaply in subsidized housing. How long can she maintain her charade? Can love, which is supposed to make you blind, even work out that way? Director Tom Lass takes a closer look, shooting with blind actors and old Berlin buddies, acting the lead himself – paying tribute to a way of life beyond our way of seeing the world.

In the 70s Matteusz Gdula invented an acting method that was supposed to make every actor “shine”. Still, lots of his students die mysteriously and Gdula commits suicide. His method gets banned. Now: Stella, an ambitious, but rather untalented drama student, gets accepted at the „Matteusz Gdula“-school. When she bears witness to some strange occurrences, she gets drawn into the bizarre and deadly web that surrounds the dark secret of the school...

Under the slogan of the arms race of the superpowers, which escalates in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and brings the world to the brink of nuclear war, two exemplary post-war male figures challenge an almost archaic feud: Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss and journalist Rudolf Augstein.

Undine rescues a prince from drowning, and leaves him unconscious on shore, where he can be found, but she has already fallen in love with him. Unable to enjoy life below the waves, the mermaid makes a deal with the Sea Witch to become human. The mermaid must also give her voice as payment. And her humanity is only conditional: if she can make the prince fall in love with her and marry her, she can gain a share in his soul and be truly human, but if he marries another, she will die at the next sunrise. It turns out that the witch only made her believe she would die if the prince married another as a Secret Test of Character: by refusing to kill the prince even to save her own life, she proves that she already has a soul. So she remains human, gets her voice back, and sets out to explore the world.