Heiner Carow

Eight-year-old Matthias dreams that he will someday become a pilot and his divorced parents will get back together. He waits yearningly for his ninth birthday because his father has told him the story of Icarus, and promised to take him on a sightseeing flight. When Matthias’ father doesn’t come home, he is devastated. He runs throughout the city, talks to his friend about the relationships of adults, looks for his father at his desk, and gets himself into conflict with the police. As he sits alone on the roof of a house, he comes to the conclusion that Icarus didn’t plummet to the earth because he didn’t listen to his father, but rather because his father had forgotten him.Read More »

A refugee from a Nazi concentration camp is discovered by some boys in WWII Berlin. They provide him with food and help him to continue his flight. Later one of the boys, the son of a communist, is charged with theft, arrested and sent to a concentration camp.Read More »

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Tim is the son of a lighthouse keeper. In his remote home setting, Tim often feels lonely. When Young Pioneers pitch their tents nearby, he is overjoyed. Friendships develop very fast. When Tim is allowed to travel to Sundevit with his new friends he is delighted. Before the journey, however; he has to carry out an assignment – but this takes longer than he hoped it would. On the way, he keeps meeting people in need of his help. And Tim helps them although he becomes increasingly pressed for time.
When he finally returns, the Young Pioneers have al ready left. Tim decides to follow them but, due to carelessless, he exposes himself to danger. Finally, he is picked up in a military exercise area and taken to the police. When he relates his experiences, kind people help him – in the end, he manages to reach his destination Sundevit and to meet up with his friends.Read More »

A young teacher in East Berlin struggles with accepting his homosexuality.Read More »

Günter Walcher is an average, apolitical, working-class West German citizen caught in a moral conflict. He is offered a promotion to division head—on the condition that he find a reason for Zacharias, the work council chairman and a communist, to get fired. Walcher thinks back on another situation where he was lead to do something he believed to be wrong: when he was a member of the Hitler Youth, he became responsible for someone’s death.Read More »

It is March 1945 and 15-year-old Günter Walcher still believes the war will end in victory. During a manhunt for a runaway immigrant laborer, Günter proves himself the most capable searcher. He turns the man over to the local police who then shoot the foreigner. Günter is proud of himself and, although his father has recently died in battle, the boy volunteers to be sent to the front.
On his first mission, Günter comes under attack from the Russians and he flees. When the Russian army marches in to Günter’s village, the boy is arrested for the murder of the laborer. His experiences throw him into intense confusion. Soon he asks himself: How can he live with his guilt?
Based on the story “Die Anzeige” (The Report) in Egon’s Richter’s book Ferien am Feuer (Vacation by the Fire).Read More »

“Bis daß der Tod euch scheidet” is the story of a couple whose mad love for each other smashes headlong into the husband’s patriarchal value system. Based on a true story.Read More »

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Die Legende von Paul und Paula (English: The Legend of Paul and Paula) is a 1973 tragicomic East German film directed by Heiner Carow. It was based on the novel of the same name by Ulrich Plenzdorf.

The film was extremely popular on release and drew as many as three million viewers (the GDR had a population at the time of around 17 million). However, due to the film’s political overtones it was almost not released; East German leader Erich Honecker personally decided to allow it to be shown. Today it is considered one of the best-known East German films.Read More »