Movies: Defa

Post-war Germany 1945: Two rival gangs of uprooted boys fight each other in the ruins of Berlin, whose business is the black market out of necessity in order to survive. Their respective leaders are Gerhard and Dietrich. A pretty young circus artist ...

This is the directorial debut of Artur Pohl and tells the story of war refugees as they try to settle in a small town in Germany....

A moving saga focusing on the women in a family that spans three generations and almost 70 years of German history, from the Wilhelmine period through the end of WWII. This film shows that it takes a combination of hard work, political consciousness ...

Berlin, shortly after World War II. Five parentless siblings, led by the oldest sister Inge Kuckert, search for a place to stay and a basis of existence in the destroyed city. A bombed villa in the Grunewald seems to be the right "cuckoo's nest", but...

Shortages in postwar Berlin have created a blooming black market, and the goods rounded up during a major police raid all seem to come from the same source. The trail leads Commissioner Naumann to the Alibaba Cabarett, but he is unable to find conclu...

While an anatomy seminar prepares to examine the cadaver of Franz Wozzeck in the name of scientific progress, medical student Büchner excoriates humanity for having allowed Wozzeck’s fate. The tragic story unfolds in flashbacks, as Büchner narrates....

Set during the rise of the Nazi regime, Elisabeth Maurer and Hans Wieland enjoy successful careers as actors in Berlin. Confident in her career, Elisabeth, who is Jewish, ignores the advice of a colleague to leave Germany in the face of increasing an...

After World War II, scores of refugees leave in search of a new home. They now stand in the hall of a large mansion, waiting to receive their deeds of ownership for sections of land that the lord of the manor had left behind after he fled. Among them...

While on leave in Berlin during the Second World War, a soldier named Hans meets a young woman named Monika. They fall in love and make plans for a future together after the war. Yet their later attempts to find an apartment and get married are hinde...

During the global economic crisis, "Morgenrot" mine is due to be closed due to unprofitable results. With the use of a machine forbidden for security reasons, the mates try to work more effectively and thus save their jobs. A serious accident happen...

The film centres around the young woman Erika, desperately seeking for love and escape from the depression of the times, drifting, and in the end becoming involved with a circle of rich people who sell goods for sexual favours....

Dr. Blum, a Jewish manufacturer, is falsely accused of a murder. Even when the real killer’s identity becomes evident, the state prosecutor refuses to accept Blum’s innocence....

After WWII, Berlin lies in ruins. For Gustav, Willi and their friends the rubble provides an adventurous, dangerous playground. Especially for Gustav, it helps pass the time, as he longs for his father's return from a POW camp. One day a stranger arr...

Anne Treibel owns a small house that is home to four women and one man, Martin, a badly injured war veteran. All the women are interested in Martin, but he knows that only Anne truly loves him. When Helga asks him to get a surgery that could save his...

The mechanic Behnke wants to join the Nazi party to secure a good living. However, after his Jewish neighbors have been taken away, he changes his views. Trying to remain "a non-political man," he withdraws from reality and becomes a Nazis laborer....

A chemist and his assistant make a groundbreaking discovery. They manage to make butter directly from pasture grass without having to deal with either the cow or the use of dairy products. An industrialist attempts to seize the invention....

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family....

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII....

In 1948, students from Berlin University take part in the filming of a movie about the 1848 revolution as extras. A dispute arises between Else and Heinz, who tends to dismiss the revolution as a comical affair. Two fiercely opposing camps form at th...

Boys are usually busy playing "Indians", but when their uncle decides to rent part of their home to a Doctor Höflin, they took an oath to cast him out with a series of pranks....