Tilman Günther

A portrait of a single day in the late summer of 1956, toward the end of Bertolt Brecht's life, as he prepares to leave his lakeside home, surrounded by the women who form his extended family.

A poor peasant woman lives in a cabin in the woods. She grows two rose-trees in front of her house, one with white roses and one with red. When the flowers bloomed she had two children, both girls. She named them both after the trees, Snow White and Rose Red respectively. They have an adventure involving a bad dwarf and a bewitched bear.

Marie is dyslexic and cleans for the wealthy von Schermann family. Her mother Greta, who suffers from dementia, has just scared off her carer and her son Niklas has to travel with his wife. Marie decides to help out for a few days. While the two women get to know each other and explore Greta's past together, Marie's husband, police officer Dirk, sulks. But businessman Niklas has also made a mess of things. When his wife leaves him, he discovers Marie's charms.

He was arrested 23 years ago. In May 1995, Germany's most famous building tycoon and fraudster was caught by FBI and BKA investigators in Miami. Jürgen Schneider had been hiding there with his wife Claudia for over 13 months after his flight from Germany triggered the biggest real estate bankruptcy of the post-war period. He left behind debts of over 5 billion Deutschmarks to more than 50 banks. Never before had the banking industry in Germany been so ripped off. But it was not only the banks that were affected, but also many, especially East German craft firms.

At the battle of Solferino Joseph von Trotta, a lieutenant in the Slovenian infantry, is wounded while saving the life of the young Austrian Emperor Franz-Joseph I. The Emperor rewards him by elevating him in society to a position quite out of keeping with his social rank, and which entirely alienates him from his farming background: Joseph gets promoted to the rank of captain, and is made a member of the nobility. Years later Joseph von Trotta accidentally finds a description of the battle that changed his life in a text-book belonging to his son Franz. Enraged at the over-emotional, patriotic and sentimental way in which the Emperor's rescue at the hands of "the Hero of Solferino" is depicted, he lodges a complaint at the Imperial Court.