Berlin, 1942. Cioma Schönhaus is a young Jewish man who won't let anyone take away his zest for life, especially not the Nazis. Since the best hiding spots are in plain sight, Cioma audaciously adopts the identity of a marine officer to escape being deported like his family before him. Drawing on his art school background, he joins a network of underground rescuers and becomes infamous for his masterfully forged IDs – created with just a brush,...

Winner of awards at Tribeca and Vancouver, MY WONDERFUL WANDA is a delightful satire of the haves and the have-nots set against the backdrop of a gorgeous lakeside villa in Switzerland. At the story’s center is Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) a Polish caretaker who has left her own small children in Poland to look after Josef (André Jung) the stroke-ridden patriarch of the wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor dynasty. Wanda is adept in navigating the tricky family...

When a forestry student, Anja Grimm, does an internship in the same forest where her father disappeared when she was a child, the nightmare of her childhood drives her to uncover a deadly secret harbored by the entire town.

By the time the DEFA Studio for Animation Film closed in 1992, it had produced more than 800 shorts in a wide variety of styles and techniques. The 16 animation films included in this collection were directed by 8 different animators between 1974 and 1990, and give a taste of animation production in East Germany. Established in 1955, the studio initially produced shorts exclusively for children. During the 1970s and '80s, however, films targeting...

A group of friends in a suburban Austrian town reexamine their lives after the unexpected death of a young woman who appeared to be leading a charmed life.

As her roommate Lisa prepares to move out of their apartment, Mara contemplates the end of an era. Furniture is moved, walls painted, cupboards built. Amid all the hustle and bustle, secret longings and desires come to the surface and coalesce around the roommates as well as around Lisa's mother Astrid, the movers, the girls' old neighbors, the neighbors' cat, Lisa's new neighbor and an ever-expanding cast of characters. Day turns into night and one...

A beautifully mounted miniseries of royal love and deception set during the Hapsburg Empire, is a feast for the senses. It is a love beset by jealousies and enemies, but also one under which the Burgundian Middle Ages transforms itself into the splendor of the Hapsburg empire at the beginning of modernity. Two lovers pave the way for the Renaissance, an era that is to change the world.

The first science-fiction film brought out in East Germany, The silent star is based on Stanislaw Lem's mysterious novel, The astronauts (1951). In it, an international expedition is sent to Venus to decipher a message found in the Gobi desert, and discovers it is a declaration of war on Earth. This original and unedited version of the film is here available for the first time with English subtitles. The silent star has its own unique Cold War history....

When the citizens of Ghent have Marie's closest advisors beheaded, she sends Joan, her lady-in-waiting, to Maximilian. He has recovered from the plague, but he is unable to settle accounts with the citizens of Cologne for his stay within their city walls. Therefore, Maximilian and Marie are married by his proxy with his confident Polheim acting as his substitute. Then the couple finally meets...

These three very original stories range from a realistic cinema verite style depiction of illegal immigrants to a high concept recap of history in the form of a romantic thriller, and finally a very sinister meeting.