
Acting
Maria Simon (born February 6, 1976) is a German actress. Simon's German father originally hailed from Leipzig and studied mathematics in Leningrad. There he met Simon's Russian-Jewish mother, Olga, who studied electronics and originally hailed from Kazakhstan. The couple married while studying. Maria Simon is the younger sister of actress Susanna Simon, who was born on 23 July 1968, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Maria was born and brought up in the former East Germany, but moved to New York City in 1990 to live with her father, a computer expert with the United Nations, and her sister Dalena Simon. She also has a sister named Alyssa. Simon has four children, the first from a former relationship with the actor Devid Striesow, and three with her ex-husband, the actor Bernd Michael Lade. After finishing school she moved back to the newly reunited Germany to study acting at the Academy of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin where she received her diploma in 1999. She won the award for Best Actress for her role in the film Zornige Küsse at the 22nd Moscow International Film Festival in 2000. Simon was nominated as the best supporting actress in the 2003 German Film Awards, and was named European Shooting Star (i.e., best newcomer) at the 2004 Berlinale. In the same year she played Polly in Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenoper at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. Her TV movie Kleine Schwester was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Awards in 2005.

Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness.

Episodes about different stages of relationships: from flirtation to falling out of love.

During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A soldier runs amok in a school. Military police and SEK take aim at the heavily armed man. Suddenly he is shot dead, but none of the snipers fired the final shot. Inspector Bischof is tasked with finding out who killed the soldier. The soldier was stationed in the very barracks that is under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralf Bischof, Kathrin's husband. An officer from the Military Counter-Intelligence Service is assigned to assist her in the investigation. Kathrin bites into the case. She finds out that the dead soldier was taking part in a series of scientific experiments testing methods to prevent anxiety. This research project is being led by her sister Ariane, a renowned psychiatrist. Kathrin's investigation puts her in extreme danger.

Kingdom of Hungary, 17th century. As she gets older, powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1614), blinded by the passion that she feels for a younger man, succumbs to the mad delusion that blood will keep her young and beautiful forever.

A young couple argue through their own wedding party.

The fairy Kräuterweis transforms the boy Jakob into a dwarf. No one recognizes him now. But Jacob does not lose his courage to face life. Because he still has a trump card up his sleeve! When 12-year-old Jacob mocks an old woman at the market because of her big nose, he has no idea that he will soon regret his actions. A short time later, the boy is already a prisoner of the fairy Kräuterweis and is forced by her to cook for her and her guests for several years. And as if that wasn't punishment enough, she then transforms him into a dwarf with a large nose. After this transformation, no one recognizes him, not even his mother Hanne. And so he has no choice but to put his newfound cooking skills to good use with Duke Kunz the Gourmand.
Nicki Ziegler, Oberleutnant der Feldjäger, wird zu einem Auslandseinsatz in den Ostkongo geschickt. Gemeinsam mit ihrem forschen Kollegen Werner Malinckrodt soll sie den Selbstmord des Soldaten Wenz klären. Tatsächlich deutet zunächst alles auf Selbstmord hin: Wenz kam mit den verstörenden Verhältnissen in dem afrikanischen Krisengebiet nicht klar und zudem wollte ihn offenbar seine Frau verlassen. Als Nicki auf dem Handy des Toten ein sonderbares Video findet, tendiert zu allerdings zu Mord...

Story of 33-year-old Johanna, who wakes up distraught and disoriented in a park near her apartment the morning after her best friend Leonie's birthday party. Johanna has no memory of the last few hours. She doesn't know what happened, how she got there - a total blank. Obviously, however, she was the victim of an act of violence - the young woman was raped. Johanna presses charges against unknown persons. Her circle of friends, especially Leonie and her fiancé Björn, react with dismay and look after her lovingly. However, when the police find out that Johanna was given knockout drops at Leonie's party and it can therefore be assumed that the perpetrator came from her circle of friends, Johanna's life seems to fall apart at the seams...




