Schultze is a recently retired miner who, like his father before him, entertains polka audiences with his accordion. When he discovers the fiery energy of Zydeco music on his radio, the rigid monotony of his daily routine takes a spicy turn. Schultze learns to play his accordion with a new snap and style. His new-found fascination ultimately leads him on a life-changing journey to the Louisiana delta.

Since the earliest days in her childhood, Lara has had a difficult but important task. Both her parents are deaf-mute, and Lara has to translate from sign-language to the spoken word and vice versa when her parents want to communicate with other people. Getting older and more mature, she becomes interested in music and starts to play the clarinet very successfully. Since her parents are deaf, they cannot share Lara's musical career. The day comes...

FLYING CLIPPER, directed by Hermann Leitner and featuring narration from Burl Ives, follows the untold adventures of a Swedish sailing ship and its young crew as they navigate the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1960s. This documentary is a stunning travelogue that takes you to the dreamiest destinations of the old world. Under the stewardship of Captain Skoglund, a group of 20 Merchant Marine cadets venture through historical landmarks, such as Tutankhamen's...

The distinguished German writer Uwe Johnson (1934-1984) lived for several years in the 1960s on Manhattan’s Upper Westside. His publisher, Harcourt Brace, had hired him as a textbook editor for their German-language school book editions, which allowed him to stay in New York and also tend to his own writing. In his spare time he got to know his neighborhood very well, observing the goings on in the streets, cafeterias, and parks. In 1968 German...

Based on the tragic “honor killing” of Hatun Aynur Sürücü in 2005, the film A REGULAR WOMAN portrays a glimpse of life for a free spirited young woman living with an ultra-conservative Turkish Muslim family in Berlin. After escaping a forced marriage in Turkey with her abusive cousin, Hatun provokes the ire of her family by embracing a westernized lifestyle. After enduring endless harassment, she finally leaves the family and attempts to survive...

Nina Hoss stars as Anna Bronsky is a violin teacher at a music-focused high school. Despite the opposition of all other teachers, Anna drives through the admission of a student, Alexander, in whom she detects a remarkable talent. Committed, she prepares him for the intermediate exam and neglects her family – her son Jonas, whom she brings into competition with her new student, and her husband Philippe. Her colleague Christian, with whom she has...

In 1772 Germany, the young and tumultuous Johann Goethe aspires to be a poet. After failing his law exams, he is sent by his father to a sleepy provincial court to mend his ways. Unsure of his talent and eager to prove himself, Goethe soon wins the praise and friendship of his superior, Kestner. But then Lotte Buff enters his life and nothing is the same as before. However, the young lovers are unaware that her father has already promised Lotte's...

Post-war Berlin, 1946: Three small-time, oddball crooks plan the heist of their lives. They want to break into the vault of the German Traffic Credit Union to steal the weekly Reichsbahn payroll. In preparation, they rent the top floor of the building and use it to spy on the bank. Despite several unforeseen incidents, the robbers are able to make off with the loot, but a motley police team gets on their heels. This crime comedy, with a stellar cast...

A partly biographical, partly fictitious account of the final ten years (1937-1947) of the life of German author Hans Fallada. His craving for harmony collides with the circumstances of the times and his own inner turmoil. As Fallada falls into a deep depression, replacing his writing with drinking and pills, his wife Anna cares for him and even tolerates her husband’s aggression and infidelity. She leaves, however, when Fallada falls in love with...

Everything changes for fifteen-year-old Heinz Stielke, a fanatical member of the Hitler Youth, when he learns that his father, who died as a war hero, was actually Jewish. Heinz is forced to leave school, loses his friends, and worst of all, his mother dies in a bombing raid. A kind-hearted police officer tries to get him a place at an orphanage in Thuringia, but on the way there, he is picked up by the SS and sent to a training camp. Based on Wolfgang...