Thomas Kirchner

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

East Germany, 1988. 19-year-old Franka doesn't really care for politics. She prefers going to the disco and dreaming about seeing Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson live in concert. But beneath her carefree façade, she is scarred by the loss of her baby brother. But then she meets Stefan: He's young, idealistic, and part of an environmental activist group. A mix that makes Franka instantly make fall for him – and his group, which welcomes her with open arms. But this wild, revolutionary influence does not stay unnoticed: Her mother, who's with the Party, is worried about Franka. As Stefan's group loses the support of the church, leaving them vulnerable to the state, Stefan and Franka are soon in the government's line of fire…

Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.

East Germany, 1988: working as a state security service agent, Jürgen Kaiser is loyal to the party line, but worried about his son Marco, a punk. As he is arrested after a concert, Marco is forced to join the army, where he surprisingly identifies with socialism and believes he has to defend his country against the capitalist enemy. While Jürgen is astonished, his wife Hanna and Marco's girlfriend Anja, supporting the civil rights movement, don't like his new attitude...

Lukas Schauttner is a management consultant. However, as a partner in his Berlin consulting company, he sees difficult times ahead. So he has to accept an assignment that takes him to Transylvania, where he is to inspect a factory. He doesn't actually want to go there, because since leaving the country in 1987, he has suppressed everything to do with his Romanian homeland. He wants to keep his trip short. But as soon as he arrives in the country, his past catches up with him. He meets his childhood sweetheart Mara and discovers a long and old family secret. When he is visited by his wife Doris and their daughter Nina, his stay becomes a heavy emotional and personal burden for Lukas. Suddenly he has to face up to his homeland, his past and his family.

A Black Forest village in the 1950s. Liesbeth Steiner refuses to give up hope that her husband Max has survived the war and Russian captivity. She waits for every homecoming train, but to no avail. Liesbeth and her young son Josef found refuge on her parents-in-law's farm. It never became a home, as Max never told his family about his war marriage. His sister Margarete, who keeps the farm running, suspects that Liesbeth is an heiress. When Max is finally included in a late repatriation transport in 1955, Liesbeth hopes that different times are dawning. But Max has changed a lot over the years.

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

East Germany, 1988. 19-year-old Franka doesn't really care for politics. She prefers going to the disco and dreaming about seeing Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson live in concert. But beneath her carefree façade, she is scarred by the loss of her baby brother. But then she meets Stefan: He's young, idealistic, and part of an environmental activist group. A mix that makes Franka instantly make fall for him – and his group, which welcomes her with open arms. But this wild, revolutionary influence does not stay unnoticed: Her mother, who's with the Party, is worried about Franka. As Stefan's group loses the support of the church, leaving them vulnerable to the state, Stefan and Franka are soon in the government's line of fire…

Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.

East Germany, 1988: working as a state security service agent, Jürgen Kaiser is loyal to the party line, but worried about his son Marco, a punk. As he is arrested after a concert, Marco is forced to join the army, where he surprisingly identifies with socialism and believes he has to defend his country against the capitalist enemy. While Jürgen is astonished, his wife Hanna and Marco's girlfriend Anja, supporting the civil rights movement, don't like his new attitude...

Lukas Schauttner is a management consultant. However, as a partner in his Berlin consulting company, he sees difficult times ahead. So he has to accept an assignment that takes him to Transylvania, where he is to inspect a factory. He doesn't actually want to go there, because since leaving the country in 1987, he has suppressed everything to do with his Romanian homeland. He wants to keep his trip short. But as soon as he arrives in the country, his past catches up with him. He meets his childhood sweetheart Mara and discovers a long and old family secret. When he is visited by his wife Doris and their daughter Nina, his stay becomes a heavy emotional and personal burden for Lukas. Suddenly he has to face up to his homeland, his past and his family.

A Black Forest village in the 1950s. Liesbeth Steiner refuses to give up hope that her husband Max has survived the war and Russian captivity. She waits for every homecoming train, but to no avail. Liesbeth and her young son Josef found refuge on her parents-in-law's farm. It never became a home, as Max never told his family about his war marriage. His sister Margarete, who keeps the farm running, suspects that Liesbeth is an heiress. When Max is finally included in a late repatriation transport in 1955, Liesbeth hopes that different times are dawning. But Max has changed a lot over the years.

"Kruso" tells of the last summer before the Wall came down on the small island of Hiddensee in the Baltic Sea. Beyond state-organized tourism, the isolated island became a kind of artist colony every year and a place of longing for dropouts and alternatives. Due to its proximity to Denmark, Hiddensee was also the starting point for the flight across the Baltic Sea.