Castles and Cottages

Mudbound(en)

In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him(de)

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

The Murderers Are Among Us(de)

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

The Good German(en)

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

Forbidden Games(fr)

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

Ashes and Diamonds(pl)

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

Collin(de)

Der Tanz mit dem Teufel - Die Entführung des Richard Oetker(de)

When wealthy college student Richard Oetker is kidnapped and held for a hefty ransom, state police officer Georg Kufbach becomes obsessed with bringing the kidnapper to justice. This film is based on a true story.

The Assault(nl)

At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.

The Night the Bridge Fell Down(en)

A group of random individuals get stranded on a bridge that begins collapsing at both ends. Not only that, but there's a gun-wielding bank robber using the bridge as his means of escape refusing to let any of the rescuers draw near the survivors. Time is running out ...

Law and Order(en)

Story follows three generations of a family in the New York City Police Department.

Dark Years(eu)

Itziar is eight years old and lives in two very different worlds. On the one hand, the world of her disappointed Basque nationalist parents and, on the other, the religious school, which gives the girl a repressive and retrograde education. However, there is another kind of world, much nicer to Itziar, formed by the street and her friends.

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger(de)

This drama is based on the childhood memories of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi, who was one of the few black native Germans in Nazi Germany. In 1935 at the age of nine, he lives with his German mother in a small flat in Hamburg's working class district Barmbek, while his father and grandfather had left the country. Although the boy is not persecuted by the Nazis and dreams of joining the Hitler Youth, his skin color makes him a target for racist abuse...

Der Mann mit der Maske(de)

A series of rapes causes a stir in a German university town. A special commission led by senior public prosecutor Schildt and detective Gawilek investigates. After months of surveillance, everything points to a chaplain as the masked perpetrator, known as "Zorro". But the investigators were wrong, because "Zorro" strikes again when the chaplain is in custody. This time, charges were also filed. But not against "unknown", but against the son of the senior public prosecutor...

Germany, Year Zero(it)

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

Little Peach(ja)

Anzukko (Little Peach) is the daughter of a successful writer. She turns down each one of her suitors, until she marries a beginning writer named Ryokichi. Their life quickly sinks into despair.

Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll(ja)

Isabella, the daughter of the noble York family, is enrolled in an all-girls academy to be groomed into a dame worthy of nobility. However, she has given up on her future, seeing the prestigious school as nothing more than a prison from the outside world. Her family notices her struggling in her lessons and decides to hire Violet Evergarden to personally tutor her under the guise of a handmaiden. At first, Isabella treats Violet coldly. Violet seems to be able to do everything perfectly, leading Isabella to assume that she was born with a silver spoon. After some time, Isabella begins to realize that Violet has had her own struggles and starts to open up to her. Isabella soon reveals that she has lost contact with her beloved younger sister, whom she yearns to see again. Having experienced the power of words through her past clientele, Violet asks if Isabella wishes to write a letter to Taylor. Will Violet be able to help Isabella convey her feelings to her long-lost sister?

Late Chrysanthemums(ja)

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.

Holding the Air(sh)

The story of a war-orphan, who remembers first post-war days, his stay in Home for war-orphans, his teachers, friends, and mostly his "only brother".

Tiefe Wasser(de)