Fernes Land(2011)

Andreas Dresen's adaptation of Clemens Meyer's novel about a group of East German friends right after the fall of the Wall.

Anne, a twenty-something student, enjoys a slow, summery day in Leipzig. While strolling through her neighbourhood she has several encounters with a stranger. At the end of the day she can't help but ask: "Do I know you?"

A dream becomes a nightmare: Shortly after the Iranian doctor Murath Tehrani and his German wife Claudia moved into a chic villa on the outskirts of Leipzig, threatening couple flutter into the house and Claudia is harassed by anonymous callers with xenophobic slogans. First, the woman tries to hide the threat from her husband. But not even the police can help her. Suddenly, every stranger approaching the house appears as a threat. Psychological pressure is also increasing the pressure on the harmonious marriage of the young couple. But Murath and Claudia are unwilling to be driven out of their homes by aggressive racists.

Three stories are intertwined in a land, Friuli, in the North-East of Italy, which extends along a triple border. The stories of Irene, a Carnian, Christian girl; Pavel, Ukrainian and Jewish; Mehdi, Iranian and Muslim. Udine. A beautiful city, but one that is perceived as cold and inhospitable by emigrants. Pavel and Mehdi are illegal immigrants, who share an apartment - and concerns about social matters - in the “ghetto” of Via Roma. In love with Pavel, Irene tries to help them, but her surge of solidarity goes perhaps too far, and she regrets it. Mehdi lives obsessed with an ancient guilt: his fragile soul is attracted to Evil. Predestination and moral choice. Two alternatives? Subjection to freedom of Good or Evil. What will the protagonists choose?

Franziska Naumann happily greets her allegedly new neighbor Dr. Gottfried Naumann. She is very surprised when he wants to move into the same apartment in which just the movers carry their furniture. Even Gottfried is surprised - Franziska has not only the same name as he, but apparently also rented the same apartment. Without compromising, the quarreled estate agents Beate and Werner Wüstholtz has rented the apartment twice. There is only one solution: until the circumstances are clarified, the unequal couple must live together in the apartment. The fight burns.

A man in a gleaming white suit comes to a small Southern town on the eve of integration. He calls himself a social reformer. But what he does is stir up trouble--trouble he soon finds he can't control.

Gisela involuntarily ends up studying in the cosmopolitan city of Chemnitz. There she meets her friends Jana, Fred and Meryam, with whom she spends her nights out, fights with Nazis, eventually founds the band Superbusen and, through music, hopes to find answers to all the problems life throws at her.

For years, the immigration officer Dr. Ludwig Sarheimer and the chairman of the Turkish community Cengiz Demirkan in Cologne have been fighting a small war. While the one, as a hodja, upholds the traditions of his homeland and brings Anatolian brides to Germany for Turks who are willing to marry, the other wants to prevent exactly that. Cengiz's daughter Lale Demirkan is at the center of these ongoing disputes. At home, the young woman plays the well-behaved Turkish daughter, but as soon as the German studies student leaves the house, she takes off her headscarf and sense of tradition and has fully arrived in German life. In her free time, she practises martial arts fighting techniques. So far, she has successfully fended off potential grooms.

Ibrahim chooses to fall for young and handsome Kevin over marrying his cute but expensive cousin Elif while kid brother Furkan converts to Islamic fundamentalism.

The Congolese Sikumoya faces prejudice and racism on a regular basis. He's accused of not adapting enough to the "German culture" and tries harder. A Neo-Nazi group and his mother-in-law push him to the breaking point. While in a coma, his metamorphosis completes.

Ruža left Serbia, her country, over 30 years ago and lives in Zurich. Her daily life is a string of repetitive moments until, one day, Ana arrives on the scene and upsets Ruža's painstakingly organized world. A subtle friendship develops between the two strong willed women.

Having fathered an illegitimate child with his lover, Marie, feckless soldier Franz Woyzeck takes odd jobs around his small town to provide some extra money for them. One job is volunteering for experiments conducted by a local doctor, who puts Woyzeck on a diet of peas. This serves to drive him close to madness, and the discovery that Marie is involved in an affair with the local drum major exacerbates the situation. Pushed too far, Woyzeck resorts to violence.