Ernst Ludwig Ganzert

Bach - A Christmas Miracle

Leipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.

Louis van Beethoven

1779. Eight-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, called "Louis", is already known as a musical prodigy. He learns to go his own way - much to the dismay of the people around him. Some years later, he meets Mozart during times of political upheaval. The unconventional genius and French Revolution are sparking a fire in Louis' heart; he doesn't want to serve a master - only the arts. Facing times of family tragedies and unrequited love, he almost gives up. However, Louis makes it to Vienna to study under Haydn in 1792, and the rest is history. Who was this man, whose music has since touched countless hearts and minds? At the end of his life, the master is isolated by loss of loved ones and hearing. Surely though, he was way ahead of his times.

Spätwerk

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.

Your Will Be Done

For Johannes and Lydia Klare, their faith in God comes first. Together they lead a small community in Stuttgart, successfully. People listen to them, they are becoming more and more close to them. There are even plans to make the donor-funded community much bigger by the generous contributions of Volker. First of all, the couple have quite different, more urgent points to take care of. When one day they watch the homeless street-boy Simon drifting back and forth in drug-related crises, they take him in for a short while. Together they want to help him again on the right path. But it is not just the drugs that are causing conflicts. Simon's homosexuality also presents the two with great challenge, since it is not so easy to unite with their faith.

Luther and I

As a nun, Katharina von Bora lives the life destined for her until she comes into contact with a completely new world of thought in the early 20s through the writings of Martin Luther. She flees with some of her co-sisters and comes without legal status, without income and rejected by her family to Wittenberg, where she meets Martin Luther personally. Katharina decides to marry the reformer and, as his wife, becomes a respected housekeeper, an equal interlocutor and the mother of their children together.

Sag mir nichts

Lena is happily married. From the strange man in the S-Bahn but such a pull goes out that she gets involved in a spontaneous infidelity. The stranger, Martin, also thought that the marriage with his wife was completely safe. Nevertheless, what should actually be written off as an adventure between Lena and Martin is becoming the projection screen for newly created needs and longings. Lena and Martin can not let go of each other.

I've Never Been Happier

Success is a question of confidence, particularly in times of crisis. Life would be unbearable if there weren’t beautiful things to brighten it up a little, including pretty faces. Frank Knöpfel constantly flirts with life with his beguiling bright blue eyes. He buys a complete stranger an expensive coat in a designer boutique just because he feels like it. He disguises himself as a businessman from Oslo, a Mafia boss, a stock exchange specialist and an estate agent, whatever it takes to bring in the cash. He is the type of person who enjoys looking in the mirror, and delights in what he sees there. A flirtation with a customer in a boutique leads to Frank’s undoing.

The Unknown Soldier

In the wake of World War II, most Germans have been raised with the mistaken belief that the Holocaust had been planned and executed by just a tiny minority of Nazis, namely, the Gestapo and the SS. The sad truth, however, is that Hitler's philosophy of ethnic cleansing, as the Fuhrer so brazenly espoused in his frightening manifesto, "Mein Kampf," had been enthusiastically embraced not only by the entire military but also by most of the civilian population. The long-suppressed proof of their widespread collaboration and participation was unveiled in The Wehrmacht Exhibition, a damning collection of photographs and film footage that toured Deutschland between 1999 and 2004. The show shook the country to its core because it forced folks to face up to the fact that it took much more than a madman and his henchmen to wipe out six million.

Nachbarinnen

The single package-delivery woman Dora lives a somewhat reclusive life in a high-rise in Leipzig and gets through everyday life with her dry sense of humor. But her quiet, well-ordered life spins out of control when she has to hide her mysteriously fascinating Polish neighbor Jola – who believes to have accidentally killed someone. Dora is hesitant at first to take her in, but she cannot seem to shake her fascination with Jola. Dora's trust in the direct, impulsive woman grows – Jola seems to ask exactly those questions no one else dares to ask. When Dora finds out that the accusations against Jola have been lifted, she lies about the status of the police investigation in order to keep her Polish neighbor for herself.

Maison de France

Documentary about the 1983 terrorist attack in West Berlin’s Maison de France.