Volker Canaris

Germany Pale Mother

Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.

The Marriage of Maria Braun

Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.

Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl

Anna is a Jewish girl in Germany. When the Nazis come to power in the 1930s, her family has to flee the country without being able to bring any of their belongings. Even young Anna's pink toy rabbit has been confiscated along with the family's other possessions. Initially the family lives in Switzerland, but even here they come to feel the antisemitism. And when money becomes scarce, and Anna's father can't find work as a journalist and Jew, they move on to France, where they are no long submitted to racial discrimination, but struggle financially. Eventually the entire family manages to go to England.

The Last Days of Gomorrah

Her only foray into science fiction—about the havoc wrought on society by a television that satisfies every human craving—The Last Days of Gomorrah was a favorite of Sanders-Brahms, who brought feminist politics to the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s. It is a forceful piece of capitalist realism, critiquing working-class alienation and commodity culture.

Van der Valk and the Rich

Dutch police officer Van der Valk is pulled away for a private investigation for a friend of the chief of police to find the missing junior manager. When he gets to know his woman, he is fascinated by the thought of running away with her.