Michael Benthin

Angela Merkel's decision in autumn 2015 to open the borders for refugees split the country - some praised the moral stance, others criticized the surrender of sovereignty. Yet what would appear to be well-planned activity is in reality a policy of muddling along, chance, trial and error. The Driven Ones is a chronicle of the refugee crisis which shows that the political actors are being driven along, crushed between self-imposed constraints and events that have spun out of control.

Who knows Berthold Beitz? Fewer and fewer people. He shaped the history of Germany like no other, be it as the leading industrial manager of Krupp or as the rescuer of numerous Jews during National Socialism.

An in-depth look at how fascism hides behind facades of a tolerant, intellectual and open-minded society.

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.

East Germany. Summer, late 70's. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij's apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life in the West. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij's mysterious disappearance. Is he still alive? Was he a spy? Plagued by her past and fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.

A 13-year-old refugee from Afghanistan living in an emergency shelter in Germany joins a Christian boys' choir to save his father who was left stranded in Hungary, and clashes with the strict choir master.

"Snow White Must Die". Part 1 of 4 Nele Nauhaus Mysteries. A young man returns to his village after serving time for a murder he may or may not have committed. Will old truths be dangerous even now? Pia and Oliver investigate.

Alaska Johansson is the perfect woman and she is the best in her profession as a headhunter. One day she is fired by her boss, a married man who she has an affair with. He also tells her that their relationship has no future. She decides that her best option is to commit suicide with a poison cocktail. She is saved when a child in a Halloween costume enters her apartment demanding sweets. Something is not right about the child. Later her neighbor is going to tell here that there never was a child. Alaska’s world is turning upside down, her perceptions seem to be merely illusions. When her car starts to act on its own and causes a crash, she becomes convinced that someone is conspiring against her. Or is there another, darker secret in Alaska’s life?

A young couple moves to a gated community (named Sechzehneichen), where soon the creative wife (a photographer) gets bored and the husband joins a secret mens' club. All the other wives seem strangely conservative and shallow. Basically a thinly veiled take on the Stepford Wives, just without any bit of humor or atmosphere, but instead filled with the sterile, unflinching and dry seriousness that makes watching a lot of our German films such a drag and a miserable experience.

In the 1980s, an Israeli refugee, deemed a traitor, coaches West Germany's basketball team.

Once again, the "border crossing" is celebrated, as every seven years in the Upper Hessian town of Bergen. It is really turbulent at this folk festival, when the municipal boundaries are confirmed from old tradition and everything is upside down. For this occasion leaves Thomas Weidmann his girlfriend and flees because of his botched university career from the city of Berlin back to his native village. At the party, he meets Kerstin Werner, whose life has just come out of joint - her marriage is broken and her husband Jürgen on the jump to another, younger woman.

A character study of a family on vacation. The emotional abyss and problems are behind the seemingly nice facade of an intact family as they experience guilt, love, and jealousy.

The major flood disaster on February 17, 1962 hit Hamburg completely unprepared. It left 315 dead and 10,000 people homeless. Almost a fifth of Hamburg's urban area was under water. In times of need, the people of Hamburg followed their young police and interior senator Helmut Schmidt, who later became Chancellor, who gained respect nationwide in those days.

At the height of the cold war in the divided country of Germany, several individuals try to smuggle 'real' coffee from West Berlin into East Germnany via train, despite the erstwhile efforts of security guards trying to prevent them doing so.

"Willkommen im Club" shows the influences of unemployment (actually the number one theme in Germany) on daily life. What happens within the families, what happens with the self-esteem of people who unexpectedly lose their work? By choosing different points of view, we wanted to find out what happens beyond the daily news.

TV adaptation of Michael Thalheimer's production at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.

The cop Kahnitz wants to finish off the little gangster Ben. The young undercover policewoman Melody is supposed to tempt him to make his final break. What Melody doesn't know is that Kahnitz and Ben are connected by a dark chapter in their past, and Melody is supposed to help Kahnitz settle his old scores. But the intriguing game of love, hate, crime and betrayal inevitably drags everyone involved into a bloody showdown...

Grandma Vera travels by bus from a small Polish town to Pinneberg to celebrate her birthday with granddaughter Linda, her husband Lothar and their two children Jan and Christina. Together with Lothar's stuffy, uptight parents, they spend a fun-filled evening. But the next morning, Grandma is dead. Although Grandma Vera actually wanted to lie next to Grandpa Pyotr in her hometown of Kovalov, the family cannot afford an expensive funeral. So there is only one option: to transport Grandma themselves.

A comedy directed by Jürgen Bretzinger.

Funeral assistant Eddie Hartmann leads an unglamorous life. Eddie is a tough guy, but an even tougher drinker. His wife goes down on him in public and Eddie dreams of killing her in cold blood. But he doesn't have the final determination.

The wealthy Hamburg gallery owner Elaine Troost dies mysteriously on a stormy fall night and her body is subsequently found in the bathtub by her daughter Gabrielle. The autopsy of the body reveals that her death was caused by violence. A witness testifies shortly afterwards that she saw the art forger Jan Vleuten outside the gallery owner's house on the night of the murder. He is nicknamed "the blonde monkey" because of his strange fondness for primates and his light blonde hair...

Nabou, an Afro-German slacker, desperatly wants to win back her club kid ex-girlfriend Katja. Nabou becomes a housekeeper for Katja's neighbor, Kim, who is a workaholic that is striving to become a partner in an advertising agency. A refreshing romantic comedy with the ingredients of a classic lesbian feature: whimsical sexiness, mistaken identity, and general madness and mayhem.