Frank Drannemann, a passionate star chef and single father, is in a professional and private crisis. Since the tragic accidental death of his beloved wife, the soul of the gourmet restaurant "La Vie", business has been bad. Daughter Franzi, handicapped by a stiff knee joint since the accident, doesn't let anyone get near her. The little son Michael also feels neglected, because Frank mainly concentrates on cooking. When preparing his famous lobster or seasoning one of his irresistible sauces, the gourmet chef is in his element. But Frank has lost sight of reality: Since the friendly reception from Frank's wife has been missing, far too few guests appreciate his exquisite cuisine, and so "La Vie" is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Two young and attractive social workers/nuns bring fresh air into a city missionary station, but are also challenged by lust and money, offered by a millionaire.
Elias, born at the end of the war, receives an anonymous phone call on his 47th birthday: his parents are dead. He is now a successful politician, but thirty years ago he had fled from his home and parents in the East to seek a new life in the West. The return to his parental home causes Elias a sense of unease and disturbs the rigid order and complacency of his life.
Franz Xavier Stannebein, a young boy at the turn of the 20th century, wants to do nothing more than fly. He carries this dream through his years at an orphanage and into adulthood as a merchant in Spain. He eventually invests everything he has into building his own version of an airship. He later meets some industrialists in Germany who want to support his idea, and they ask him to build an airfield in Spain. When he sees the Nazis use the field during the Spanish Civil War, however, he feels betrayed and goes to Germany to protest. There he is thrown into an insane asylum in Leipzig. After WWII, his grandson and other survivors of the family searches for him, only to find the empty asylum... Based on the novel Das Luft-Schiff. Biografische Nachlasse zu den Fantasien meines Grossvaters (1974) by Fritz Rudolf Fries. The non-camera animation in the film was created by internationally known director Lutz Dammbeck.
Weeks after the victory in Vietnam, first pictures of a new humanity are captured: old and sick people preparing for their future, children on their way to school.
In medieval Germany, poor and witty Till Eulenspiegel fools and cheats citizens, churchmen, and landlords. Although in most cases he uses his wit for personal well-being, he often helps the poor and weak. Eventually, he gains an influential but also dangerous position as royal fool at the court of the emperor.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.