The everyday adventures of a filmmaker caught between social causes and amorous entanglements. Pia Frankenberg’s witty alternative to the popular rom coms of the 1980s, reflecting an ironic attitude towards her debut film.

Elfi Mikesch and Eva Hiller talk to film restorer Eszter Takács.

A young, migrant Turkish worker who hopes to meet up with her lost fiancé ends up in the hands of a German pimp. This 1976 social-realist drama was an indictment of male violence and lawlessness in Germany’s migrant milieu.

To help his girlfriend, a prostitute in Hamburg’s red light district St. Pauli, a young petty gangster gets involved in an armed robbery. But in this raw and action-filled social drama, everybody loses in the end.

A young jazz musician roams Berlin, meets up with friends and plays sessions. A narrative film with documentary elements that draws a nuanced portrait of West Berlin and the urban artistic bohemian milieu in the early 1960s.

The big city seen in artificial light. This essay film illuminates the nightly lifelines that keep Frankfurt and Berlin running. The director undertakes a critical reflection on the urban “Empire of Light”, uncovering the underbelly of modern life.

Just before the Berlin Wall is built, a young East German worker tries his personal and professional luck as a barkeep in West Berlin. A realistic love story set during Germany’s post-war economic miracle, which here does not fulfil its bright promises.