Franz is by far the smallest in the class, has blond ringlets and gets a high-pitched squeaky voice when he gets upset. Luckily, two best friends help: Gabi and Eberhard. When Franz discovers Hank Haberer's "10 rules for a real man" for himself one day, turbulence is inevitable and the friendship of the three gets into trouble.
The film is set in the near future, in a world of perfect capitalism. Society is sustained by a class of top achievers; meanwhile, so-called minimum recipients live under sedation in Fortresses of Sleep. The great majority of top achievers view themselves as happy. An outsourced agency has been established for the rest: Life Guidance is charged with turning these individuals into optimal people as well. Alexander has internalized the system but one wrong word to his child triggers Life Guidance. He starts to rebel and encounters the horror of the system in all its brightness and affability.
In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
The young actress Käthe is not 18 when she conquered Berlin's theater stages. Privately she finds her luck alongside the famous artist Max Kruse, but the wild marriage is considered scandalous and has a negative effect on the sale of his art. Thus, Käthe moves without him into an artists' colony on Monte Verità on Lake Maggiore. Out of necessity, she creates a doll that has never been seen before: with a natural expression and vivid facial expressions. What follows is a blitz career. But the phenomenal success of their handmade dolls causes unpleasant imitations - their company is about to go out.
A woman admitted in a mental health centre in order to overcome the death of her son decides to finish with her life. Her situation worries her husband and also her roomate, who is admitted in the centre although being in perfect mental situation.
Another one of those stories we hear almost every day: refugees are picked up on Austria's border after a dramatic chase. And then nothing more is heard of them. The problem is apparently resolved in the usual way, through incarceration and deportation. But it's different this time: the story continues in Ghana, where everything is suddenly turned upside down.
300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.
The sun blazes down from the sky with destructive power; exposing oneself to its light means death. People have transposed everyday existence to the night. In the metropolis of HALF WORLD a culture based on various languages and lifeforms has grown rampant. Everyone is looking for a way to survive.
For many years the old Waller worked as a railwayman. After Waller is informed that "his" track will be closed down and that he will be retired, he walks the route for one last time and starts to remember his life along the way: Beginning in his childhood in the 1920s, he commemorates the death of his great love as well as he recalls the legal battle with his illegitimate daughter.