Movies: Michael Benthin

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance paintin...

A character study of a family on vacation. The emotional abyss and problems are behind the seemingly nice facade of an intact family as they experience guilt, love, and jealousy....

In the 1980s, an Israeli refugee, deemed a traitor, coaches West Germany's basketball team....

A comedy directed by Jürgen Bretzinger....

Alaska Johansson is the perfect woman and she is the best in her profession as a headhunter. One day she is fired by her boss, a married man who she has an affair with. He also tells her that their relationship has no future. She decides that her bes...

"Snow White Must Die". Part 1 of 4 Nele Nauhaus Mysteries. A young man returns to his village after serving time for a murder he may or may not have committed. Will old truths be dangerous even now? Pia and Oliver investigate....

A 13-year-old refugee from Afghanistan living in an emergency shelter in Germany joins a Christian boys' choir to save his father who was left stranded in Hungary, and clashes with the strict choir master....

A young couple moves to a gated community (named Sechzehneichen), where soon the creative wife (a photographer) gets bored and the husband joins a secret mens' club. All the other wives seem strangely conservative and shallow. Basically a thinly veil...

At the height of the cold war in the divided country of Germany, several individuals try to smuggle 'real' coffee from West Berlin into East Germnany via train, despite the erstwhile efforts of security guards trying to prevent them doing so....

Grandma Vera travels by bus from a small Polish town to Pinneberg to celebrate her birthday with granddaughter Linda, her husband Lothar and their two children Jan and Christina. Together with Lothar's stuffy, uptight parents, they spend a fun-filled...

The wealthy Hamburg gallery owner Elaine Troost dies mysteriously on a stormy fall night and her body is subsequently found in the bathtub by her daughter Gabrielle. The autopsy of the body reveals that her death was caused by violence. A witness tes...

Angela Merkel's decision in autumn 2015 to open the borders for refugees split the country - some praised the moral stance, others criticized the surrender of sovereignty. Yet what would appear to be well-planned activity is in reality a policy of mu...

"Willkommen im Club" shows the influences of unemployment (actually the number one theme in Germany) on daily life. What happens within the families, what happens with the self-esteem of people who unexpectedly lose their work? By choosing different ...

East Germany. Summer, late 70's. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij's apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West Germ...

Once again, the "border crossing" is celebrated, as every seven years in the Upper Hessian town of Bergen. It is really turbulent at this folk festival, when the municipal boundaries are confirmed from old tradition and everything is upside down. For...

The cop Kahnitz wants to finish off the little gangster Ben. The young undercover policewoman Melody is supposed to tempt him to make his final break. What Melody doesn't know is that Kahnitz and Ben are connected by a dark chapter in their past, and...

Nabou, an Afro-German slacker, desperatly wants to win back her club kid ex-girlfriend Katja. Nabou becomes a housekeeper for Katja's neighbor, Kim, who is a workaholic that is striving to become a partner in an advertising agency. A refreshing roman...

The major flood disaster on February 17, 1962 hit Hamburg completely unprepared. It left 315 dead and 10,000 people homeless. Almost a fifth of Hamburg's urban area was under water. In times of need, the people of Hamburg followed their young police ...

Funeral assistant Eddie Hartmann leads an unglamorous life. Eddie is a tough guy, but an even tougher drinker. His wife goes down on him in public and Eddie dreams of killing her in cold blood. But he doesn't have the final determination....

An in-depth look at how fascism hides behind facades of a tolerant, intellectual and open-minded society....