Herwart Grosse

Historical drama portraying the life of German baroque architect Andreas Schlüter.

The young and rebellious Werther is passionately, but hopelessly, in love with Lotte. Although he knows that she is married to somebody who can offer her a secure future, Werther tries to be near her. Lotte cannot decide between these two men. She eventually rejects Werther, who does not survive her decision.

Kasper Mai, an export merchant and comrade with a “clean” record, discovers he is the prince of Hohenlohe-Liebenstein. His royal grandmother designates him as the heir to her estate. A private trip to her reveals that she does not want a NATO airbase built on her land. The GDR and his grandmother thus find a common interest, and a clever lawyer from the East works against other family members looking to settle their debts with the estate money.

Jordan, a famous criminal lawyer, will only represent clients, of whose innocence he is convinced (must be financially not-too-well-off). One day, his future son-in-law, the jeweler Fabian, is arrested on suspicion of murder on the day before his wedding. He is said to have murdered his ex-wife, the dancer Ria Norady. The conductor Gillmore found her dead in her dressing room shortly after a visit from Fabian. Gisela Jordan asks her father to defend him. After speaking to Fabian, the lawyer is convinced he's innocent. But since there is no proof of this, he decides to go and try and find the real murderer himself.

In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined and his calls for justice go unanswered, Levin leaves town.

After the death of their father, 18-year-old Helene Raupe (“coccoon”) and her younger sister Asta come under the guardianship of the youth welfare office in East Berlin. Helene fails miserably as a fishmonger, fashion assistant and bus conductor, all jobs ordained for her by the authorities. The young woman really only “emerges” in her fantasies, where she can escape from her dull, normal life.

This film takes place during the Seven Years' War. The Prussian Major von Tellheim has become engaged to the Saxon noblewoman Minna von Barnhelm. After the war, the King - in an unwarranted move - deprives the major of his honor. Von Tellheim becomes impoverished and, filled with shame, breaks off his relationship to Minna. An innkeeper in Berlin, who is a police informer, makes the Major move to a shabby little attic because he cannot pay his debt. In the meantime, Minna has also arrived at the inn. She and her lady's maid Franziska are questioned and spied on by the nosy innkeeper. Minna has followed her beloved Tellheim and she now cunningly manages to elicit a new declaration of love from him...

Vienna, 1813-1819: Beethoven (played by Donatas Banionis) is at the peak of his fame. Orchestras all over the world play his music, but he lives modestly and is dependent upon private patrons. Nagged by his patronizing brothers, spied upon by officials for his republican beliefs and faced by his progressive hearing loss, the composer becomes more and more isolated. Seeman’s poetic film explores the joys, heartbreak and artistic spirit of the great composer as he works on his Ninth Symphony.

Dr. Gisa Tonius, a physicist in her thirties who has a nearly adult stepdaughter, cherishes the desire to have her own child. Suddenly, a big interdisciplinary research project threatens to significantly change Gisa′s life. Uncertain whether to look for professional or private fulfillment she asks her family and friends for their opinions. They all have different views on the point at issue. While her husband is afraid of losing her to her profession, her professor thinks that because of her talent she has an obligation towards science. In the end, Gisa reaches a decision: She wants to have a baby as well as take on the research project.

Screen adaptation of Julius Fucik's story about communist fighters.

Soldier Ignaz Wolz returns from WWI with an immeasurable hatred of capitalist war profiteers. He decides to start his own revolution, but tries to stay away from the organized class struggle. He steals from the rich men and divides the wealth among the poor. One day, Wolz is arrested and sentenced to life in prison; seven years later he is released due to mass protests. More than ever, it is hard for him to fit in. He severs ties with his former companions, who reject his ideas, and leaves Germany.

Portrait of Hans Globke, jurist at the ministry of interior during the Third Reich and co-author of an official commentary to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the Nazi Racial Legislation. While Adenauer appointed him Secretary of State in 1953, he was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in absentia by a GDR court in 1963.

After a long period as a prisoner of war, Joachim Ott returns home to find that his wife is now living with another man.

Biographical movie about Julius Robert Mayer (1814-1878), a surgeon and town doctor in Heilbronn, who studied heat for many years and was the first to correctly formulate the basic principles of the theory of mechanical heat and the principle of conservation of energy. Competing Prussian scientists laugh at him, and his life is full of misunderstandings and persecution. The film tells of his fate and his long and futile struggle for recognition of the results of his scientific work.

Rustic weapons, centuries old traps; wreckage of U.S. bombers, a perforated “bulletproof” vest are exposed in the museums of Hanoi. “The neglected free visit to the Hanoi museums cost the American people 56,369 killed people and 146 billion dollars.”

Based on the records of the Nuremberg trial of the chemical giant IG Farben; a story about the collaboration between international corporations and Nazi scientists, whose research contributed to the death of millions. The chemist Dr. Hans Scholz lives through a tortuous political transformation and maturation process. Eventually, he adopts political neutrality and closes his eyes to the fact that the poison being produced in his factory is being used in the extermination camps. Standing before the judges at the Nuremberg trials, he must face the fact that he is implicated in the deaths of millions in the gas chambers of the concentration camps.

Otto, a feckless Everyman, tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow.

Based upon Shakespeare′s "Twelfth Night", the movie tells the story of the Duke of Illyria who is in love with the Countess Olivia. Olivia, however, keeps eluding him. When the Duke sends her a page to bring her a message, Olivia falls in love with the messenger who is in fact a woman called Viola. After she was shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria, Viola assumed the role of her missing brother. She cannot return Olivia′s love because she, in turn, adores the Duke.

In Scotland in 1751, young David Balfour is shanghaied aboard a ship where he meets Jacobite rebel Alan Breck Stewart with whom he escapes to the Scottish Highlands, dodging the redcoats.

The writer Franz Schmidt reads to two editors from his new romance novel. The two criticize the lack of a problematic portrayal of the joyful life of youth, the role of women and the collective "welding together". He is asked to revise the work again. In his new version, the writer presents - in a staged setting - a pair of lovers who want to start a life together in front of smoking chimneys with a piece of steel from the new production. But even this does not satisfy the two art experts. A couple are kissing in front of the window. They point to it and recommend another revision. Outraged, Mr. Schmidt tells them he is going to write a story about real-life art experts and leaves. Their photo disappears into a folder labeled "superfluous contemporaries".

Produced by DEFA and broadcast in four parts in 1968, this documentary series consists of extended interviews with ten United States Air Force and Navy pilots captured during bombing missions over North Vietnam. Filmed at Hỏa Lò Prison in Hanoi, the films focus on the pilots’ backgrounds, military service, and views on the bombing campaign and the war.