Michael Schenk

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.

In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column, Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.

It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.

Germany in the early 19th century. "Die Vermessung der Welt" follows the two brilliant and eccentric scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss on their life paths.

Markus is a handsome and respectable architect who has a secret: he is a pedophile. Despite feeling disgust of himself, Markus can't help but feel attracted to young boys. When he thinks he won't be able to suppress his deepest feelings, he decides to isolate himself.

Based on a true story, Miguel Alexandre's two-part drama focuses on an East German woman and the fight for her children. Spring 1982: Sara Bender, living with her daughters Silvia and Sabine in the East German town of Erfurt, wants to marry her colleague Peter, but shortly before the wedding, her father is killed in a road accident. As the funeral takes place in West Germany, she isn't allowed to got there, so she starts planning to leave her communist home country forever. Trying to flee via Romania, she is caught by the secret service. After years in jail, Sara is ransomed by the West German government, but without her daughters. To draw the world's attention on her desperate situation, she starts demonstrating at the Berlin border crossing Checkpoint Charlie

Based on the childhood memories of actor Michael Degen, the movie deals with the everyday struggle to survive as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As his father had died in 1940 after being released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Michael and his mother fear to be deported themselves. They manage to live in Berlin with false names and faked papers, hidden by several, often broken, people...

Paul Bacher is in crisis. If he could feel in the past as one of the most influential writers of his generation, he has long lacked ideas and impetus for a new great work. His reading tours are becoming more and more a sad affair with too much alcohol and too little public. Then Paul overflows in a drunken hitchhiker, flees first scared and later removes the body, without talking to anyone about the experience. But something is flowing in its interior. Paul starts to write again. The criticism is done, but the story about the death of a hitchhiker also arouses suspicion.

Famous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele — the 'Death Angel of Auschwitz', who killed more than 300.000 people — emerges from his hideout in Argentina to Germany as a 87-year-old man, and must stand for his crimes in court. The young solicitor Peter Rohm is assigned to defend him, but Rohm himself — an expert on Mengele and his crimes — feels unable to do so. When he decides to take on the case, he endangers not only his marriage but also his and his wife's lives.

A crime writer on a train to Berlin shares her compartment with a mysterious man who claims to be a cannibal. Initially intrigued, she tries to humorously dismiss his claim while her imagination sparks a new novel featuring Detective Rosa Roth, who investigates a similar case. As the journey progresses, the writer’s confidence fades, replaced by fear and mistrust. The man’s behaviour becomes more unsettling, especially after a young girl reports inappropriate comments from him. In the dining car, he claims to have eaten a fellow passenger and reveals his tools are nearby. Despite her fear, the writer is drawn to learn more about his methods, blurring the lines between her novel and reality. Ultimately, her fantasy merges with reality, leading to dire consequences.

At the height of her career, the well-known comedy and TV star Gaby Köster suffers a serious stroke. However, the multi-award winning artist does not give up, fighting back despite many ups and downs.

Edward Kaminsky, an aging ad man, wants a golden parachute from his agency; he must first land the Opel auto contract. Rosa, a youth with wealthy parents, wants to establish herself as an artist. The clumsy and enthusiastic Viktor, not quite honest, wants work. When he wanders into Kaminsky's meeting with Opel and says something about irony, the Opel director wants him in on the campaign. Then he steals an idea from Rosa that the Opel director loves. Before Rosa discovers he's expropriated her idea, Rosa and Viktor become lovers. Father-son feelings materialize between Kaminsky and Viktor. Can the impulsive Viktor hold it together before Rosa learns the truth and flies away?

Peter Weiss’ monumental 1965 stage play, among the greatest artworks on the Holocaust, condenses the testimonies of witnesses and the accused during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-1965. This ultra-faithful film adaptation builds, across four hours, in its intensity and graphically described detail.

A kidnapping case starts a dangerous game of cat and mouse for Berlin detective Martin Brühl in the world of illegal car racing. 19-year-old Tim Jatzkowski doesn't come home. At first this is nothing to worry about. But then his father, luxury car dealer Heiner Jatzkowski, receives a ransom demand. Martin Brühl and his team encounter a shocked mother and a rather shirt-sleeved father who thinks the police should do their job and find Tim. The detective tries to convince Jatzkowski to pay the ransom. Among Jatzkowski's regular customers, whom he supplies with tuned luxury sports cars, there are plenty with contacts to the Berlin clans. He decides against paying the ransom.

Berlin at the end of the 19th Century. Alexander Hoffmann is an ambitious PhD student of Ethnology. When a delegation of the Herero and Nama tribes travels to Berlin during a ‘Colonial Exhibition’, he takes a special interest in their young female translator Kezia Kambazembi as subject for his studies.

In this vivid historical drama set in 1980s East Germany, two dockworkers and best friends who dream of escaping the repressive regime are forced to choose their loyalties when the state police promise them safe passage out of the country — if they inform on their co-workers and union leader.

Two-year-old Paulina is suddenly no longer in her crib, and everything points to an abduction. But the hijacker does not answer.

Leo has been working for the insurance company for 19 years, without a sick day, without being late, without ever being noticed. Now there is panic in the office: Layoffs are imminent. Nevertheless, the Christmas party takes place - for some it's more of a farewell party. Leo plucks up his courage and asks his shy new colleague Marie to the dance. But is he the right man to win Marie's wounded heart?

Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.

Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.

The SOKO Köln investigates the cathedral city with humor and often with hard work. Their cases take them into a variety of environments, from the Cologne clique to the terraced housing estates on the outskirts of the city.

Ein Fall für zwei is a German television series, which premiered on September 11, 1981 on ZDF. The series, located in Frankfurt am Main, features two main characters who solve crimes: a defense attorney and a private investigator. Josef Matula, a former German police officer, has gone into private business. His method of investigation is very effective and direct, and he sometimes even resorts to dirty tricks. Claus Theo Gärtner has portrayed the role since the start of the series.

A long-running German television series about a two-man team of highway police, originally set in Berlin and later in North Rhine-Westphalia.

SOKO Leipzig is a German police procedural television programme, a spin-off of the earlier German police programme SOKO 5113. It was first broadcast on 31 January 2001, on German television channel ZDF. On 12 November 2008, the first part of a two-part crossover between SOKO Leipzig and British police procedural The Bill was aired, with the same version being shown on both ZDF and British television channel ITV1.

The SOKO Stuttgart team investigates analytically and with sensitivity in the likeable state capital. The exciting cases of the series lead them to bizarre crime scenes and to different milieus.

Küstenwache is a German television series that tells the fictionalized adventures of a unit of Federal Coast Guard officers off the German coast of the Baltic Sea.

A missing child sets four families on a frantic hunt for answers as they unearth a mind-bending mystery that spans three generations.

Beneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties.

Der Kriminalist is a German television series produced by Monaco Film Hamburg, subsidiary of Odeon Film. Directors during the first season were Sherry Hormann and Torsten C. Fischer, during the second: Thomas Jahn, Jobst Oetzmann and Torsten C. Fischer.

Shows the interaction between Hamburg police officers and paramedics.

The spin-off to the original series 'In aller Freundschaft' focuses on the young doctors in a fictional clinic in Erfurt. In this emotional drama series, hospital staffers and patients navigate life's challenges.

Der Fahnder is a German television krimi series which was aired between 1984 and 2005. In the Netherlands the series was broadcast by the VARA from 3 October 1985.

Georg Wilsberg is an antiquarian in Münster. He used to be a lawyer but lost his license. Since then he has been working as a private detective. The always clammy Wilsberg urgently needs this income. In addition, he depends on the support of his friends, especially because of the car.

Siska is a German television series created by Herbert Reinecker and Helmut Ringelmann and broadcast since October 30, 1998 on the network ZDF. In France, the series was broadcast on France 3 and rebroadcast on 13th Street. It is a police drama and follows the adventures of Peter Siska and later Victor Siska. Anyway it wasn't the best surname for a policeman because in some languages word "Siska" has extremely close meaning to "Boob" or "Tit". So you'll never see this series on, for example, Russian television. Croatian Radiotelevision has however shown the series, despite 'Siska' having the same meaning in the Croatian language

Balko is a German prime time television series broadcast on the private TV channel RTL. It is a police detective story with comical twists featuring two inspectors of the Dortmund police, Balko and his colleague Klaus Krapp. Balko's main characteristics are his coolness and his consistently laid-back appearance, whereas “Krappi” is a typical mama’s boy and very clumsy. The series started in 1995 and has won several television awards.