RIDING THE STORM, a five-part series on the fate of a woman and a family, begins in the summer of 1914 and literally takes the pulse of the entire 20th century.

Chief Inspector Beckmann finds himself involved in an extremely tricky case when a woman claims that she witnessed him committing murder and robbery.

Housewife Theresa Bayer has won a prize: a holiday in a luxurious and extremely high-class hotel with beauty centre and adjoining golf course.

Tough magazine journalist Alexa  writes her fingers to the bone for a Munich lifestyle glossy, churning out features about unfaithful men, relationship problems and unhappy couples.

The 1998 German Film Awards are presented in the heart of Berlin. The Brandenburg Gate forms an extraordinary backdrop to this occasion: it becomes the gateway to German film.

Berlin. In an desolate tenement block the police discovers the gruesomely severed body of a man. Apparently a piece of his genitals has been bitten off. Head Detective Bernie Kominka's investigations lead him to a young woman in a red coat, and from there straight into the turbulent labyrinth of his feelings. He falls in love with his main suspect and loses control of his senses, not knowing whether or not the woman he is attracted to is a brutal murderer...

Synopsis A two minute political fantasy, Gunther Scholz's LITTLE ADDENDUM was greeted by amused shock and howls of laughter when it premiered at the 1998 Berlinale in the short film competition. The "report" refers to a bid to host the 2004 Olympic Games in Leipzig. The setting is the GDR Politburo where the voice of Erich Honecker is heard. "Our bid, of course, assumes that the German Democratic Republic will still be around in the year 2004." The LITTLE ADDENDUM to Honnecker's speech was made just days before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Rüdiger Dohmann, a specialist in internal medicine, reveals to his wife Iris that he wants to marry his pregnant mistress, psychologist Clarissa Mawaldt.

This time the two inspectors Herbert Schmücke  and Schneider have to investigate the mysterious death of restaurant-owner and painter Jens Dallman , whose body is found one day by his girlfriend Katrin Kreuzer in the central courtyard of the

The new film version of “Winnetou” with Pierre Brice in the leading role concentrates in particular on the special relationship of American Indians with the natural environment, which in this case is about to be destroyed systematically by an

Private detective Moritz Fink is only supposed to be in the USA to track down the heiress of an industrialist who has recently died.

One day diamond expert Ronnie discovers a real jewel: Ginnie. A victim of Cupid’s arrow, after having met this attractive young woman purely by chance he resolves to follow her all the way to Belgium.

The 1997 German Film Awards were held on June 6th at Tempelhof Airport under its motto: The Night of the Stars.

When a young doctor - Charlotte - and her daughter Franzi move into Frankenstein’s villa, they discover the legendary monster imprisoned down in the cellar and make friends with him.

Harry Oswald, a 50-year-old Berlin based architect, has been seeing his mistress regularly and discreetly for a long time. Britta Burkhard is considerably younger than him, and they meet in a rented apartment.

Background Last July, when Mika Kaurismäki was honored with a retrospective tribute at Karlovy Vary, Ziegler Film approached him about making an Erotic Tale. “Can I shoot it in Rio?” was the only question. It’s where Mika hangs out when not in Helsinki - and Marcel Camus’s ORFEU NEGRO (Golden Palm, Cannes 1959) just happens to be one of his favorite films. A few weeks later, while competing at the Moscow film festival with the thriller Condition Red (starring that talented rocksinger-actress Cynda Williams, the female lead in Bob Rafelson’s Wet), Mika presented an exposé of his own erotic version of the Orpheus legend: SAMBOLICO, set in Brazil’s wild, sexy, head-spinning Samba season. Kari Väänänen - you saw him as the penniless composer Schaunard in Aki Kaurismäki’s La Vie de Bohème (1991) - plays a famous Finnish conductor who ventures onto the Copacabana beach one afternoon after a successful concert premiere and meets a young woman on the run from a brutal pimp. The encounter leads to a sensual journey through Rio’s ludicrous nightbars and into the rhythmic embrace of samba groups preparing for the season’s big contest. The next morning, when the conductor awakens in his hotel room, he’s not quite sure if he’s dreamed it all. As it turns out, the girl really does exist! But is the she a he? One of Europe’s celebrated cult directors, with an affinity for Godardian nihilism and American B-movies, Mika Kaurismäki had previously shot Amazon (1991), with Kari Väänänen, and Tigrero (1994), with Sam Fuller and Jim Jarmusch, in Brazil. “Rio is my backyard.” Synopsis The day after his successful concert performance in Rio de Janeiro, Eric, a Finnish conductor, spends a relaxing afternoon on the Copacabana with a refreshing drink and surrounded by a bevy of girls in bikinis. The appearance of a beautiful young girl, whom he had met in the elevator, lightens the moment - until she runs away in fear of Rudi, a tough accompanied by a pair of threatening companions. Later, Eric meets the girl again at the samba festival, where she dances seductively for his approval. When Rudi appears on the scene, they run off into the night … down dark streets and alleys … into gay nightclubs … and out onto a moonlit beach - where their act of love is interrupted once again …

Background The First Riga International Film Forum “Arsenals” got off to a fast start in 1988 by honoring Dutch filmmaker Jos Stelling with a retrospective tribute. Most cineastes were familiar with his debut feature film, Mariken Van Nieueghen, an inventive modern version of the medieval morality play that was selected for the official competition at the 1975 Cannes festival. Stelling’s next films - experimental, autobiographical, historical tales of suppressed passions, themes of deception and illusion, fantasies spiced with wit and humor - won him a cult following at international festivals. Only Britain’s Derek Jarman has dared the same range of themes from epical self-portraits to a minimalist-cinema, microcosmic view of the modern world. Each of his films is an extension of the Jos Stelling oeuvre: Elckerlyc (1975), Rembrandt Fecit 1669 (1977), The Pretenders (1981), The Illusionist (1983), The Switchman (1986), and The Flying Dutchman (1995), a film that took seven years to bring to the screen and the offical Dutch entry in the competition at Venice this year. In THE WAITING ROOM, Jos Stelling’s Erotic Tale for Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion, a young man is enchanted by a woman in an advertising poster. One day, in a railway station, his dream-goddess suddenly stands before him in flesh-and-blood. And while his wife is away in search of coffee, his sex-fantasy becomes a reality - before an astonished assembly of waiting passengers. Numbed, befuddled, exhausted, Eugène Bervoets (you saw him in The Flying Dutchman) awaits his wife’s return… Synopsis A large train station, it might be anywhere in a big city. Waiting passengers, some rae curiosly observing each other, some are too much involved with their own petty problems to pay attention to anything else. Our man, self- assured, practically undresses some of the woman present with his eyes, at least as long as his wife is absent, trying to get them some coffee. A beauty in blue returns his challenging looks, he can hardly believe it's true. Obviously, it is his lucky day today. By the time his wife returns our man has experienced some astonishing things under the watchful eyes of the fellow passengers. And most probably he will be much more reserved next time he sees a beautiful blonde.

Background Detlev Buck is a natural for an Erotic Tale. His “teaser” exercise at the Berlin Film Academy, One Reel In a Shower (1988), toyed with the fantasies of a shy young man in a public shower, whose reveries are suddenly interrupted by the unexpected visit of a plumb young lady. His comedy at the 1993 Berlinale, No More Mr. Nice Guy, described by a critic as “Vladimir and Estragon in a roadmovie,” had the audience in stitches and made a screen star out of natural-born-comedian Joachim Król. So when Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion approached Buck about making an Erotic Tale, the mischievous glint in the corner of his eye got the better of him. Detlev was just wrapping a new feature film when he sat down with Regina in an Italian restaurant to bat around a couple ideas that had been pestering his sleep. “There’s this dwarf…in a circus…with a countess…” Synopsis A travelling circus winds its way on a wintery day through the Brandenburg countryside. Ramon, the dwarf-trainer who looks after the elephant Edgar, watches apprehensively as a car overtakes the troupe - and then crashes on the slippery surface. Ramon, with the help of Edgar, rescues Countess Lilly von Teltow just in time from the burning car - for which he is invited to the family castle to collect a reward. But when Ramon brings get-well flowers to the countess, he is disturbed to find her lecherous husband chasing Irene, Lilly’s beautiful nurse, around the house - so for his reward he asks for a night with the countess …

Andrea lives in a stuffy little town where she constantly rubs people up the wrong way. One day the richest man in town dies, which turns out to be bad luck for Andrea: she was there at the time. The young woman becomes the victim of a witch-hunt.

The Kids from Berlin: the street-fighters and the joy-riders, the gangs from Grunewald and the yuppie kids, children who have come into conflict with the law because they want to explore the frontiers of their worlds, because they are desperate and

Beckmann & Markowski – Torn by

The inhabitants of a Berlin suburb are horrified when the two young daughters of Heinz and Katrin Menzel are found dead in a nearby forest.

Luise is a housewife and mother of three. Her two daughters are exhausting enough, but when baby Michael begins to scream every night he deprives his mother of her sleep - and almost drives her out of her mind.

The German Film Awards 1996 with motto Night of the Comedians were held at Deutsche Oper in Berlin.

After the gruesome murder of a young woman, Daniel Beerbaum is sentenced to many years of hospitalized therapy in a mental institution.

Background Denver festival director Ron Henderson had been following the Erotic Tales closely ever since he heard about the planned series at the 1993 Telluride festival. So by the time his own festival had rolled around the following October, his Moviemakers Tribute honored Regina Ziegler and Wolf Gremm, with the Erotic Tales as a festival highlight. And upon viewing a cassette of Janusz Majewski’s Devilish Education at RZF during the Berlinale last February, he booked the “Polish Tale” on the spot: “American audiences will really like it!” Once upon a time, back at the turn of the century, the milkmaid Gosia is caring for her cows on an idyllic rural countryside. The afternoon is hot, so she bathes naked in the river. The next day, a stranger-in-black appears on the scene and shows her a painting he had done of her in the nude. Embarrassed, but hardly offended, she makes his acquaintance and is soon introduced to the secret pleasures of life: love-making, the beauty of art, the music of Mozart, the delights of the dining table. The meadow becomes a natural backdrop for her lessons in life's mysteries, in contrast to the moral concerns of her mother, the puritanical ethics of the church, and the puzzling medical diagnosis of the country doctor. "Maybe it's something the devil told her," they conclude. Renata Dancewicz is now a rising star on the Polish screen after her discovery as Gosia in Devilish Education. “Gorgeous,’’ enthused an American critic at Montreal. “Is the devil real? A demonic vision?” asked a Vancouver critic. “And who cares - with actress Dancewicz?” Synopsis Once upon a time, at the turn of the century, the milkmaid Gosia is caring for her cows on an idyllic countryside. The afternoon is hot, and she takes a bath in the river. The next day a stranger-in-black appears on the scene and shows her a painting he has done of her in the nude. Embarrassed, but hardly offended, she makes his aquaintance and is introduced to the secret pleasures of life: The moral concerns of her mother, the puritanical ethics of the church and a puzzling medical diagnosis of the country doctor seems to lead to only one conclusion: It must have been something the devil told her...

Background The Erotic Tales returned to Filmfest München a second year in a row last June when Nicholas Roeg’s Hotel Paradise was invited as the icing on the cake for the festival’s retrospective-workshop honoring one of cinema’s preeminent cameramen-directors and his actress-wife Theresa Russell (in Insignificance she’s a fetchingly intellectual Marilyn Monroe). Nic signed on for an erotic tale after Regina Ziegler had paid a personal visit to his hideaway home in Laurel Canyon during a junket to Los Angeles. “I’ll let you know when I can fit it in…and Theresa just might be interested.” Cut to the bridal suite of a luxury hotel in London, the set for Hotel Paradise. An attractive woman in her best years emerges from a dreadful hangover. To her surprise, she finds herself handcuffed to a naked man in bed next to her. Worse - this is her wedding day, and the morning is slipping away fast. Worst of all - the man is a complete stranger! The wedding guests are about to arrive within the next half-hour. The rub? This is a mafia wedding… The bride, clothed only in a peekaboo veil, scrambles for what she can find of her trousseau as her handsome bed-partner stirs to life to advise her to leave town as fast as she can. But who is this guy, and why is he packing a gun in his boots? The only clues are a Rousseau painting on the wall and the stranger's penchant for quoting Thomas Hardy's poem on the sinking of the Titanic. Theresa Russell plays a winsome gun-moll en déshabillé, and Vincent d'Onofrio a macho poet, in this witty satire of the gangster genre penned by Michael Allin. An “erotic thriller” - London Film Festival. Synopsis A beautiful woman wakes up with a hangover in the bridal suite of a luxury hotel. And finds herself handcuffed to a naked man. Remembering this is her wedding day, it is a shock to discover the man next to her is a complete stranger! And the wedding guests are on their way...Who is this guy, with a gun in his boots? What does he want from her and how can she make sure to be ready for her future husband in time? The bride - no wonder - is panicking. But at the same time feels strangely attracted to this unknown, very naked man.

Anna is not so very young any more, but still a voluptuous woman and full of desire. Unlike her husband, who prefers to watch television instead of making love to his wife.

This is the story of little Natasha - based loosely on the authentic case of a young girl called Olivia - who is suffering from Wilm’s Tumor, a form of cancer which only strikes children.

1.

In Winners and Losers Conny Knipper has agreed to act as a replacement for an older colleague who has fallen sick - and soon begins to hope that he may have a secure future as a doctor with a permanent practice.

As a sports doctor, Conny Knipper places far more significance on feet and reflex zones than on boring X-ray machines: in the end his healing hands have proven themselves against more traditional methods.

Dr. Kathrin Klein is an anaesthetist in the casualty department of a Dresden hospital. Her son is a student, at present in Africa as part of an internship programme. Kathrin’s relationship with her colleague Dr.

Horst, a powerful and good-natured man in his late 30s, is the manager and doorman of a discotheque.

Back in 1995, when the Film Awards were attracting as much attention as a pebble dropped into a pond, the Berlin based production company of Regina Ziegler was asked by the Federal Ministry of the Interior to reorganize and regenerate the

Background Paul Cox was serving as the jury president for the “Arts and Cinema” competition at the 1993 Istanbul International Film Festival when Ziegler Film approached him about making an Erotic Tale. “Would around Christmas be okay? I’ve got a few weeks free between projects. But what’s an erotic tale?” A stopover visit to Berlin resolved the issue: he spent a weekend “surfing” the private channels looking for something that vaguely resembled an erotic film. “Maybe it’s time to make a sweet, tender movie about two girls spending a wonderful weekend together at a farm in the country…” Cox’s Illumination Films survives on the principle that the best way to compete against Hollywood is to form your own company and “make low-budget films against the grain.” Man Of Flowers (1983) and My First Wife (1984) dealt with sex, fantasy, and the outsider as few independent filmmakers would dare, “because they’re honest films about myself, about my own emotions, but I guess they say something to other people as well.” For the teasing opening scene in Touch Me, Paul Cox assembled all his friends to paint a “Naked Maya” in an art-studio. Then his “Maya” went off to spend a tender weekend in the country with the art teacher…to commune with nature…over wine and Mozart. Touch Me was desired by a gay and lesbian festival. “This is as close to soft-porno as you can get and still be watching an erotic tale,” voiced a critic. “Claudia Karvan is beautiful,” said another. So is Gosia Dobrowolska, an art teacher any normal male would like to spend a weekend with in the country. Synopsis Two woman, the elder in her early forties. the younger in her twenties. They are good friends. The older woman. Sarah, is an artist, a painter, who has first and foremost found solace and sexual fulfillment in her work. The young woman, Christine who often models for Sarah's art classes. is heartbroken about her lover: the man does not understand her. We watch the close rapport between the two women as Christine patiently poses for Sarah's rather whacky group of students. After classes, Christine talks about her relationship with Roderick. " I used to really like him. Sometimes I still do". He's even jealous of her posing for art classes. Says she doesn't have the body. We see Christine at home with her boyfriend. It is hardly a scene of passion and love. Their lovemaking is routine... As complete contrast, we see Sarah's illicit rendevous with her married lover, Stewart. Abandoned and carefree passion. Sarah persuades Christine to join her for a weekend in her country house in the hills outside Melbourne. For the first time, Christine smiles. She discovers a trampoline in the middle of a meadow filled with yellow flowers. She chases wild horses through the fields and the two of them scream with delight as they rush back to the house In the evening, they relax in front of the fire. Sarah gently massages Christine. Their weekend is over, Christine returns to the city totally self-contained in her newly found sensuality and freedom.

Background The International Film Festival of India, held in January 1995 in Bombay (India’s “Bollywood”), was in an uproar. For the first time, despite a treasury of native erotic art and literature, an Indian erotic film had been made by Mani Kaul, the aesthete among Indian filmmakers, and could be seen at the festival. Only one screening was allowed for the Erotic Tales program - Wet, The Dutch Master, and The Cloud Door - and, sure enough, the police had to be called out to prevent a riot at the doors of the Sterling cinema. IFFI director Malti Sahai resolved the dilemma by scheduling an extra press screening for The Cloud Door at the Little Theatre in the Tata Institute on Nariman Point. After the press screening, Indian Television interviewed co-producer Lalitha Krishna and actress Anu Arya Aggarwal, who had placed her career on the line by exposing a breast in the production. A taboo had been broken. Or had it? Two year later, the Indian distributor of the Erotic Tales was still trying to clear the films at the government censor board. Mani Kaul drew upon three literary sources for The Cloud Door: Bhasa’s Sanskrit play Avimaraka (5th-7th century), Mohammed Jayasi’s Sufi epic love poem Padmavat (13th century), and the anonymous writer of the Erotic Indian Tales Suksapiti. Indians know well the story of the parrot Hermani leading Ratnasan to the bed-chamber of the Princess Kurangi, but they have yet to see it on the local screen. Locarno wrestled München for the right of “first festival night” (München won), and both the New York Film Festival and the Robert Flaherty Seminar selected The Cloud Door for presentation - such invitations are high praise for any director. Synopsis In an ancient castle in Rajasthan the King overhears the parrot in its cage whispering erotic descriptions to his young daughter Princess Kurangi. Enraged, he pulls out a knife and attacks the cage. Kurangi defends the bird by arguing that its speech is all learnt. Young women descend into the waters of a pool. Kurangi clutches the green parrot with its long tail against her bosom. Her clothes fall on the steps as she enters the waters with the parrot. The bird suddenly spreads its wings and flies off travelling over the mountain top to a far place. The parrot has been captured by a bird catcher. When Ratnasen passes by its cage, he is startled to hear the parrot speak his love's name: "Kurangi" If Ratnasen would free the parrot from his sleepy master, it would be willing to show him the way to the palace and lead him through the secret passages to Kurangi's chamber. The two reach the palace and the bird flies off to tell Kurangi of her lover's approach. Ratnasen scales the tower to finally reach her chamber in the clouds and spend a night of' love. THE CLOUD DOOR has been adapted from three sources: Bhasa's Sanskrit play " Aimaraka "(5th-7th century) Malik Mohammed Jayasi's Sufi epic love poem " Padmavat " (13th century) and the erotic Indian tales "Suksaptiti" (writer unknown).

Background Ken Russell, the enfant terrible of British erotic cinema, just happened to be in Cannes for the MIP-TV market in April 1993. And he just happened to see the one-minute video spots running daily at the stand where Regina Ziegler was promoting her new Erotic Tales series. The director of the scandalous Women In Love (1969), adapted from D.H. Lawrence, and the visually exciting The Devils (1971), his version of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, had just finished another Lawrence production: Lady Chatterly - so he simply offered his services. “I think I can have a script ready for you in a couple weeks. I’m directing a play in Bonn, so why don’t we meet again there?” In between rehearsals, over lunch at an Italian restaurant, Ken told Regina about the story of the breast pump… The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch is an erotic tale cut from real life. Conceived by Hetty Baynes, Ken Russell’s actress wife, “it’s about sounds - rather what people think things sound like.” Take a breast pump for drawing milk, for instance - it sounds just like a vibrator! Now put the stray notion of a vibrator - running all the time behind a closed door in a hotel room - into the imagination of a fascinated pulp-fiction writer, and you have a male’s fantasy on the run: Just what kind of woman is this?! A couple of months later, Russell was shooting on the picturesque Dorset coast at an exclusive hotel near Swanage, nearby an ancient relic that’s a tourist attraction. Hetty Baynes plays Mrs. Kirsch, Simon Shepherd the distraught, distracted writer. “Delightful kitsch!” wrote a critic. “A big tease!” enthused a festival-goer in Denver. Vintage Ken Russell. Synopsis The woman, in her thirties, stands gazing out to sea. The man, a rather studious type, lounges on the grass and finds the woman fascinating. The woman passes closely by without a glance in his direction. He follows her. In the hotel dining room the man watches the woman nibbling a corn on the cob dripping with butter. A smile of satisfaction plays around the corner of her mouth. Before she has finished, "Mrs. Kirsch" is paged to come to reception. At least he knows her name. At breakfast the following morning our man watches her toying with a sausage. The hotel porter approaches her with a bulky envelope. When she splits it open a dozen polaroids cascade across the table and she hurries with the picture from the restaurant. The man follows her to her room and listens at the door. He hears the distinct sound of a buzzing vibrator. He can't stop following her. He is always close behind wearing some pathetic disguise. Wherever he goes, he hears the vibrator sound in the distance. She devours cream cakes, goes to the cinema alone in the afternoon to watch "Sex, Lies and Videotape " A most intriguingly insatiable woman... Back at the hotel that evening, he gathers courage to make contact and asks the waiter to deliver a bottle of e champagne and a note to her table. The waiter brings him a note from Mrs. Kirsch. She invites him for a drink in her room. She orders drinks from room service - our man dares to order a kirsch. But before the order arrives, she dashes off to the bathroom. That noise again! She returns, completely in control. Our man simply must act. He lunges for Mrs. Kirsch and confesses his obsession - he has heard the noise, the buzzing noise... Mrs. Kirsch reveals all...

Once upon a time a teenager named Leroy did a bent-over old lady a favor. Leroy was a loner, not because he wanted to be, but because the other boys had things he did not have: like girlfriends. All Leroy had was pimples on his face.

Background Bob Rafelson, a compulsive drifter, has just returned home to LA from a six-week tramp across Turkey when Regina Ziegler phoned to ask if he would be interested in making an Erotic Tale. Why not? was his quick response. He had just wasted two years on the disappointing Man Trouble and welcomed a return to his roots. Back in 1969, his BBS Productions (one of the “B’s” stood for Bob) had backed Dennis Hopper’s Easy Riders, a sensation at the Cannes festival. Bob also directed one of the hottest scenes ever seen on the Riviera: Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson scorching a kitchen table in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1986). “So how about if I shoot this one in a bathtub?” Six weeks later, Wet was finished - and a screening of Bob’s “shortie” was arranged for Regina Ziegler at an Avid editing studio on Las Palmas in Hollywood. When a cassette was brought to the Cannes festival to preview the series for the Venice selection committee, Cannes scout Pierre Rissient raised an objection: “Can’t you keep it for us until next year?” Wet and The Dutch Master packed the Salle Lumière on a Sunday afternoon in May 1994 under the programming title Séance spécial - Contes de la séduction. So began a tour of the Erotic Tales at over a hundred film festivals. Wet launched the career of singer-actress Cynda Williams, the voluptuous young lady in the tub, who later starred in Mika Kaurismäki’s Condition Red. And when the Erotic Tales were programmed later at the Cairo festival, Wet was the only film that couldn’t be shown because it didn’t pass the government censorship board (no reasons given). Synopsis A huge bath showroom. Brass fixtures along the walls, sink and showers, enameled toilets, jacuzzi tubs, steam showers, all polished and gleaming. Saleswomen and salesmen move uneasily amongst the customers. Hardly anyone can afford the prices. The sales people are energetic but it's hopeless. They haven't made a sale in weeks. The manager Bruce, about 35, oversees the bustle. He's charming, well built. supercilious - and desperate to boost business. Davida. late 20's, enters just before closing time. Bruce senses she is a buyer. Well dressed and confident. Not the average family woman on a tight budget. He moves in. Davida needs a tub and she needs it fast. But she wants to fill one of the baths with water and step in. Not possible. There are rules - hygiene regulations. You can demonstrate the jets in a working tub. You can try out a dry tub. But you can't get in a full bath tub! Health department forbids; insurance forbids. They talk. Davida isn't sure. This is a substantial investment. She needs a tub for two. If she can't try it out she will shop elsewhere. Bruce relents. It's after hours. For this beauty he will make an exception. But is the tub big enough for two? He demonstrates. After hours. After dark. A deal is made.

This family is constantly hatching plans that will make them rich and happy, but even when good fortune appears about to fall into their laps the Trotzkis always mess things up - because they simply can’t come to terms with the new age.

When Frank Meinberg discovers that his son Stefan has a double, his world comes crashing down around him.

When ageing actress Martha arrives in the small town of Husum she meets the wealthy furniture manufacturer Schorsch Waller, encounters a young carpenter called Sebastian Göbel and comes up against the massed forces of provincialism.

An ambitious woman who wants to get to the top - unfortunately even in today’s society female ambition is often frowned upon and often still not socially accepted.

Fashion designer Alexandra Meyberg, an attractive older also married woman, falls in love with up-and-coming young pianist Stefan Weber and helps him with his career. Meanwhile her company descends into chaos.

Rolf and Renate Fischer, teachers from Frankfurt, are extremely excited about the cultural holiday they have planned so carefully in the west of the USA. They board the plane that will take them to San Francisco.

There has been a murder in the idyllic city of Freiberg. The investigation quickly reveals a number of possible suspects, because the dead man, a car thief called Steffen Kemper, has a long police record.