Christoph Engel

Paths in the Night (1999)

Set against the backdrop of post-unification Germany, the film explores the breakdown of relations in a decaying social structure. ...

Der Menschenfresser (1994)

A crime writer on a train to Berlin shares her compartment with a mysterious man who claims to be a cannibal. Initially intrigued, she tries to humorously dismiss his claim while her imagination sparks a new novel featuring Detective Rosa Roth, who investi ...

Verlorene Landschaft (1992)

Elias, born at the end of the war, receives an anonymous phone call on his 47th birthday: his parents are dead. He is now a successful politician, but thirty years ago he had fled from his home and parents in the East to seek a new life in the West. The re ...

Die Ritter der Tafelrunde (1990)

Aging Knights of the Round Table confront a fading realm as moral decay and disillusionment spread. King Arthur doubts the Grail quest; Gawain and Lancelot return unchanged or failed. Parzival, now a chronicler, refuses to revive past glories. ...

The Architects (1990)

The architect Daniel Brenner is in his late thirties when he receives his first challenging and lucrative commission: to design a cultural center for a satellite town in East-Berlin. He accepts the offer under the condition that he gets to choose who he wo ...

Farewell, Joseph (1989)

A young man who disappears from home for a while returns as his own (deceased) brother and encounters a strange world that should be familiar to him. ...

Die Beteiligten (1989)

The body of young Christa Gellert is fished out of the water in a small town on the Elbe in the spring of 1964. Everything points to an accident - Christa drowned while picking willow catkins during an official trip with town councillor Stegmeier and his c ...

Späte Ankunft (1989)

In 1896 the Berlin noble doctor Dr. Wilhelm Holtfreter takes over his well-to-do wife Mathilde and takes over the country doctor's office in the Prussian district of Westprignitz from the late Dr. Tochtenhagen. His decision was met with incomprehension eve ...

Holiday Storm (1989)

Summer holidays are beginning for 13 years old Daniel, a boy from East Berlin. He does not know yet that his parents are going to get divorced. They are afraid of Daniel`s reaction, so they have not told him about their decision until now. Together they dr ...

Wengler & Sons (1987)

A story spanning three generations, from 1871 to 1945. When Gustav Wengler, a farmer's son, returns from the Franco-German war in 1871, he goes to work for a precision mechanics and optical company, where he soon becomes a master craftsman. Wengler loyally ...

Blond Tango (1986)

For five years Rogelio, a Chilean exile, has been in the GDR, where he works as a lighting technician at a theater. Though his colleagues try to make him feel welcome, he feels lonely and isolated. ...

Jan on the Barge (1986)

1934, Germany. Jan is a 13 year old boy, who is raised without a mother. His father, a communist, is accused of a political murder, and predicted to be shot by the police when he was on the run. Jan lives with his aunt and finds a friend, Max, who wants to ...

A Strange Love (1984)

After a hot and steamy company party, Sibylle and Harald, both in their late thirties, spend the night together. He is a widower with two sons, with the younger son just entering school. She is single and relatively satisfied in her current relationship wi ...

Woman Doctors (1984)

Lydia Kowalenko is fired from the pharmaceutical company where she has worked for many years because she refused to help cover up the use of a dangerous chemical. Her daughter Katja, however, has no scruples and risks an operation which is more beneficial ...

Fire Below Deck (1982)

Otto Scheidel (Manfred Krug) has been captain of the Elbe steamer Jenissei for over twenty years, but his ship, the last of its kind, is going to be converted into a floating restaurant. Otto, whose his strong attachment to the ship has already cost him hi ...

Apprehension (1982)

Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the ...

Wäre die Erde nicht rund... (1981)

While studying in Moscow, the GDR resident Christiane falls in love with Hatem, a fellow student from Syria. The two become a couple and have a child together. When their study draws to an end, Christiane and Hatem have to decide if they want to share thei ...

Die lange Ankunft des Alois Fingerlein (1981)

When Unku was Ede's Girlfriend (1981)

Ede falls in love with Unku, a girl from a travelling circus. Love cannot run smoothly however because Unku is a Gypsy. Various adventures take place before love is finally allowed to run its natural course. ...

Kunstraub (1980)

The director of an art museum in Thuringia and an art dealer from Constance entered into an extremely lucrative business relationship. Director Trützschler illegally supplies Ms. Münzenberg with valuable works of art, which she smuggles into West Germany ...

Coded Message for the Boss (1979)

Wolf Brandin is in his mid-twenties and lives with his wife and child in East Berlin at the end of the 1950s. In West Berlin, the student of electrical engineering is recruited by the American secret service CIA. But Brandin immediately notifies the State ...

Für Mord kein Beweis (1979)

After a fierce argument Steffi Zinn′s husband leaves the joint flat and stays away from home over night. The next morning, his wife Steffi has disappeared and is reported as a missing person. Captain Lohm takes over the case and at first looks for signs ...

Addio, piccola mia (1979)

Last years in the Life of german Dramatican Georg Büchner. Around the year 1830 he and his fellow students try to initiate a revolution in Germany, but they are not successful. Büchner has to leave the country and seeks exile in France and Switzerland, w ...

Brandstellen (1978)

Bruno Kappel is an established attorney in Hamburg who, in earlier times, belonged to an anarchistic student circle. His former girlfriend Karin Kunze is still a member of this scene. Bruno, who still has left-wing beliefs, becomes her attorney. But when K ...

Eine Handvoll Hoffnung (1978)

Berlin at the end of the 1940s. Anneliese Weyher is working as a switchboard operator. She is living with her aunt after losing her parents in the war – a stroke of fate that has thrown the young woman off course emotionally. Indifferently, she is doing ...

Die Emser Depesche (1976)

Theme of this scenic documentation is the consistent preparation of the Franco-German War by Bismarck and leading Prussian military, who, with the help of the conservative and liberal Berlin press, created the mood in which the publication of the heavily r ...

Toggenburger Bock (1975)

His passion for hunting almost spells doom for the sales manager of a GDR convenience store: his ambition to shoot a big buck just before the start of the closed season leads him to fall for a joke played by his son. He has tied horns to a prize-winning br ...

Visa für Ocantros (1974)

In the troubled state of Ocantros, the prime minister is assassinated. Martin Katrup, who is responsible for setting up a large printing plant, is also on the island at this time. A short time later, two of his colleagues disappear without a trace and Katr ...

The Sinking of Emma (1974)

A funny adventures of a two young boys who are trying to rebuild the ship called "Emma" for their friend - the old captain. ...

Love at 16 (1974)

Although at first Ina barely takes any notice of Matti, the two teenagers gradually fall in love at their dance classes and begin their first real relationship. Their parents are upset about this development and try to prevent their children from seeing ea ...

Die sieben Affären der Dona Juanita (1973)

She is called Dona Juanita: the attractive young architect Anita Nachtigall, who manages a department on a large construction site with great success. She is said to have had many affairs and, so it is said, the death of a certain Sawallish. The evil after ...

Verwandte und Bekannte (1971)

Using the example of three generations of a Hamburg working class family, the rise of the working class from the founding of the Wilhelmin Empire to the First World War, over the time of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the destruction of the ...

Denn ich sah eine neue Erde (1970)

Four-part television film about the theologian Thomas Müntzer, who became a revolutionary and opponent of Luther during the Peasant War in 1525. December 1520: Martin Luther publicly burns the papal certificate threatening him with excommunication. The p ...

Mohr und die Raben von London (1969)

London in 1856. Karl Marx is living in exile in the British capital. One day, "Mohr", as Marx is called by his friends, meets the 13-year old worker′s son Joe. The boy works every day for twelve hours in a spinning mill and even has to work night shifts ...

Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa (1968)

Russian soldier Grisha escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp in the spring of 1917. He is caught and is to be shot as a spy. This decision is controversial. The dispute continues. Grisha is executed on the orders of the army high command. ...

Tod im Preis inbegriffen (1968)

The Brave Truant (1967)

On one very fine sunny day, a fourth-grader Thomas, as always, is out of the house in the morning to get to school by subway. But on this day he has a too good mood and that, along with the good weather, prevents him get to the lessons. He decides to skip ...

Stories of That Night (1967)

Four directors - four styles - four episodes, all relating the events of a single night which has entered the history books: August 12-13, 1961. There are thousands of complex narratives connected with the frontier drawn through the middle of Berlin, and e ...

Frozen Flashes (1967)

In November of 1939, the British consulate in Norway receives documents saying that the Nazis are conducting secret rocket research in Peenemünde. But the British doubt the authenticity of the so called "Oslo report". Thus, the Germans continue their expe ...

Brennende Ruhr (1967)

The two-piece black and white movie "Brennende Ruhr" portrays the events during the Kapp-Putsch 1920 in a small german town in the Ruhr district. The main protagonist is Ernst Sukrow, a student who sympathises first with the bourgeois forces but finally de ...

The Rabbit Is Me (1965)

Maria, a young student sees her brother Dieter going to prison for sedition against the state. She starts an affair with Paul, a judge who turns out to be the one who sentenced her brother, which eventually leads to a confrontation. ...

Der Nachfolger (1965)

The Federal Republic of Germany. Journalist Rohmann, seriously injured in a car accident, is dying in hospital. Before his death, he bequeaths his unfinished novel to his friend, the famous writer Frank Seburg, and asks him to complete the work he started. ...

Der Reserveheld (1965)

The famous actor Ralf Horricht is a pain in his current director's butt while shooting a comedy about the army. So Horricht believes it a joke, when he receives an induction-order as reserve-officer... but the captain tries his best to make him realize thi ...

Divided Heaven (1964)

After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. ...

Black Velvet (1964)

Stasi agent Alexander Berg has to uncover a plot of sabotage. ...

Naked Among Wolves (1963)

Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp. ...

Tote reden nicht (1963)

After Elmers, the head of the publishing house, is reported missing, his son-in-law Jürgen Brandt is targeted by the Hamburg criminal police. Inspector Graumann and his assistant Weber presume murder. The suspicion against editor-in-chief Brandt is confir ...

The Shadow (1961)

Junges Gemüse (1956)

At a GDR farm, VEAB chief Amann bans cabbage in favor of cauliflower, enraging LPG accountant Gritt. Mistaking visiting writer Hans Brauer for a high-level inspector, Amann backpedals, clearing the harvest issue, while Brauer and Gritt spark an unexpected ...

Distinguishing marks: none (1956)

Post-war Germany: Like so many other women, Gerda Krause has lost her husband during the war and has to fend for herself and her two children. She finds work as a seamstress but refuses the offering of her department chief Zimmermann to upgrade her qualifi ...

Once Is Never (1955)

A musician seeks a peaceful vacation in a Vogtland village but is soon overwhelmed by requests for a symphonic composition and a pop song for a local dance band, leaving him with no time to relax. ...

Karajan: Beauty As I See It (2008)

With a career that includes a 35-year tenure as composer of the Berlin Philharmonic and record sales topping 200 million, Herbert von Karajan is one of the most legendary figures in 20th-century classical music. Comprised of archival footage, performance h ...

Rumpelstiltskin and the Golden Secret (1960)

East German adaptation of Grimm's fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin". A boastful miller pretends that his daughter Marie can spin straw into gold, and so she is locked into a room full of straw and ordered to spin it into gold by the next morning. A little man a ...