A portrait of the life of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–1792), a playwright of the Sturm und Drang period and friend of the young Goethe, with evident parallels to the life of the filmmaker himself. Lenz's progressive mental deterioration and his tragic trajectory are central to the film.

The double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and his companion Henriette Vogel on November 21, 1811 at the Kleiner Wannsee in Berlin is the focus of this film. Based on testimonies from the preparation days and the day of the suicide, as well as the statements of the Wannsee innkeepers taken from the police records, the suicides are reconstructed - from the planning to the execution.

The double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and his companion Henriette Vogel on November 21, 1811 at the Kleiner Wannsee in Berlin is the focus of this film. Based on testimonies from the preparation days and the day of the suicide, as well as the statements of the Wannsee innkeepers taken from the police records, the suicides are reconstructed - from the planning to the execution.

Vienna, March 18, 1863: the poet Friedrich Hebbel, weakened by fever, spends his fiftieth — and final — birthday confined to bed. In feverish reverie, he recalls his life and work. The two blend with each other as well as with the present. A demanding reflection, filmed mostly in monochrome images, on this "ardent man" (a description by Eduard Mörike) and his work.

First film made in Wolfgang Staudte's seminar at the DFFB. The film reflects Briel's own experience with bureaucracy — shot at his former workplace at Fehrbelliner Platz in West Berlin. The cast consisted entirely of non-professional actors. Director of photography: Gerry Schum (DFFB student). Assistant director on all his academy films: Norbert Maas, a theater student.

Briel's first independent production after leaving the DFFB, made for the Sender Freies Berlin. The title is a biblical reference (Daniel 5 — "you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting"). TV documentary

The film presents three faces of Berlin as a visual puzzle: the old imperial and fascist Berlin; the newly reconstructed Berlin around Breitscheidplatz; and finally, Berlin as evoked by the elderly Adelheid Pickert, an opera singer of almost 90 who was famous as a Mahler interpreter around 1910. This third Berlin is that of a future European center freed from the weight of the past. Pickert's portrait — whose statements are described as "strangely brilliant" — creates a counterpoint to the atmosphere of Berlin in the summer of 1970.

The film presents three faces of Berlin as a visual puzzle: the old imperial and fascist Berlin; the newly reconstructed Berlin around Breitscheidplatz; and finally, Berlin as evoked by the elderly Adelheid Pickert, an opera singer of almost 90 who was famous as a Mahler interpreter around 1910. This third Berlin is that of a future European center freed from the weight of the past. Pickert's portrait — whose statements are described as "strangely brilliant" — creates a counterpoint to the atmosphere of Berlin in the summer of 1970.

The film presents three faces of Berlin as a visual puzzle: the old imperial and fascist Berlin; the newly reconstructed Berlin around Breitscheidplatz; and finally, Berlin as evoked by the elderly Adelheid Pickert, an opera singer of almost 90 who was famous as a Mahler interpreter around 1910. This third Berlin is that of a future European center freed from the weight of the past. Pickert's portrait — whose statements are described as "strangely brilliant" — creates a counterpoint to the atmosphere of Berlin in the summer of 1970.