The Physician

Noah Gordon’s novel “The Physician” was first published in English in 1986. The German translation was published in 1987. The book was internationally successful and has sold more than six million copies in Germany alone. In 2004 German television viewers voted the novel as one of the top 10 books of all times.

Nine-year-old Rob is orphaned in London in 1021. He encounters travelling barber-surgeon Henry Croft, who takes him on as an apprentice. Rob learns from him the rudiments of the healing arts and also such circus routines as juggling. After the barber’s death, Rob pursues his desire to study medicine, and sets off on an adventurous journey to the Orient, where he learns the precious science under the famous doctor Avicenna and eventually becomes a famous physician.

Bad Karma

Life after death is a question that has fascinated mankind since time immemorial, and a topic that most find hard to resist. Various religions have different conceptions of life after death. But the idea of being reborn as an ant, on the bottom rung of the ladder to Nirvana is a bit hard to stomach. So you can imagine Kim Lange’s surprise when precisely this happens to her. TV presenter Kim Lange has spent her entire adult life in relentless pursuit of the German TV Award. Finally, she holds it victoriously in her hands…but sadly, that same evening she is obliterated by a piece of debris that has come crashing to Earth from a defunct Russian space station. On the other side, Kim discovers that her self-centred lifestyle has created a great deal of bad karma for her. The bill arrives directly, as Kim finds herself – literally – in a hole.

Looking down at herself, she finds she now has six legs, antennae and a very large rump. She is, in fact, an ant – and life as an ant is none too easy. Kim repeatedly dies an ant’s death, only to be reborn, again and again, an ant. As she becomes accustomed to the perpetual process of dying and being reborn, she finds a fellow sufferer and ant – the reincarnation of the famous Casanova – who is also atoning for his sins. They decide to help each other collect good karma so as to finally ascend the ladder of reincarnation. The plan works out and the next time they are reborn not as ants – but as guinea pigs. Aptly enough, they both live their guinea pig lives with Kim’s family, who are still in mourning because of Kim’s sudden death. But Kim quickly discovers that her former best friend, Nina, who’d always had an eye on Kim’s husband Alex, is already making good progress with her scheme to take his late wife’s place. So Kim is in need of a good plan, which is no mean feat if you’re a guinea pig...

Hempels Sofa

The screen adaptation of Ralf König’s first comic look at the life and romantic dilemmas of his heterosexual fellow humans, “Der Bewegte Mann” (English title: Maybe…Maybe Not), drew more than six-and-a-half million Germans into cinemas. Now the cult author has once again turned his eye and hand to the male-female relationship, and invites his readers to take a seat on Hempel’s sofa. Hempel’s sofa sits in the practice of psychotherapist Silke Hempel – the couch on which her patients lie as they unburden themselves of their problems. Never mind the fact that the single mother (what else) has enough problems of her own: no boyfriend in sight, and an overweight son who spends his days in front of the computer and is becoming all-too- reminiscent of his father in other ways as well. For over a year, Hempel’s sofa (and her bed) are the scene of sexual deprivation. Luckily there’s Bert, the gay secretary. He takes charge of his boss, whose hormonal levels are as out of kilter as the sugar levels of a diabetic, and sets her up with a boy from Franconia, new in Berlin, whose hormones should be enough for two.

Three Bags Full

In this bestseller adaption feature film based on Germany’s recent fiction sensation Three Bags Full (original German title: Glennkill), a thriller for the whole family, the audience becomes the detective. The book sold over 1.5 million copies in Germany and been published in more than thirty languages. How can a flock of sheep star in a murder mystery? What do sheep do other than graze, sleep and bleat? Well, apparently they think about the world. Observe it. Sniff out trails and research them. Analyse facts. Create hypotheses. Discuss them. Or at least, the sheep of Glennkill on the Irish west coast do this. In fact, they can even solve a murder. Namely, that of their shepherd, George Glenn, who is found dead one dewy morning. His sheep immediately start their investigation. Who did the deed? As they uncover more and more evidence, the plot thickens...

Jungle Child

Sabine Kuegler’s life has been a series of experiences that may seem unimaginable to the rest of us. The daughter of German linguistic researchers and missionaries, she grew up in the jungle of Western New Guinea. The story of Jungle Child starts when, at the age of five, Sabine arrives in Western New Guinea. In 1980, the Kueglers essentially took their three children back to the Stone Age. A helicopter without doors flew them over the rain forest. Sabine thought she was in heaven. She grew up with the natives of the Fayu tribe, ate grilled insects and raw worms, hunted monkeys and wild boar, saw snakes and crocodiles in the river, and built tree houses in the rain forest. Her father, in an outboard-powered dugout canoe, ventured into territories no white man had ever entered before, and her mother, a nurse, helped to raise a crippled orphan.

The Weekend

After his worldwide bestseller „the reader“, in whose film adaption Kate Winslet played the leading role and won the Oscar for best actress, the author Bernard Schlink has turned his gaze to a less-familiar aspect of recent German history in his new novel “The Weekend” which has likewise taken up residence place on the German bestseller lists.

Christiane picks up her brother from prison, where he has spent the past over twenty years for his involvement in multiple murders during his anarchist days. Suddenly he has been pardoned – without ever publicly renouncing his struggle against the establishment. To reintegrate her brother into society and freedom, Christiane has invited a dozen or so friends to a decaying house in the wilderness for the weekend. The idea is that they will be able to help him start a new life. However, it soon becomes apparent that these fifty-somethings and their children, one of whom claims to have actually slept with a real terrorist, are projecting all manner of things onto the RAF-era and onto their last live remnant of that epoch ...

Marnie’s World

Marnie is a small, chubby cat and lives a comfortable life in the Sonnenschein family home. She is treated like the child that Rosalinde Sonnenschein never had. She lives like a princess and even has her own bedroom. All this infuriates Paul, who can’t stand his wife’s feisty cat. As Marnie has no friends, she spends a lot of time watching television and, when she gets bored, playing little tricks on Paul. One day Paul decides he has had enough and abandons Marnie at a rural gas station. Marnie refuses to believe what has happened. She thinks that he has simply forgotten her and sets out to find her way back home as quickly as possible. Helpless and lost, she stumbles down the country road. She discovers an unfamiliar world outside her sheltered life, very different to what she has seen on television. In desperation she joins up with three other oddball animals: a loud-mouthed dog, who has absconded with his master’s tractor; a donkey, who hopes to get his big break performing in zebra “drag” at the Circus Mozzarella; and a neurotic rooster on the run from his hens, who are hungry for revenge. Each of them has a different goal and tries to get their own way in the group. They soon run into difficulties and are forced to continue on their journey together. However, the four animals’ personalities clash more and more as time goes on and it is only when they are in dire straits that they realize they will have to overcome their differences and work together if they want to pull through. By the time they reach Marnie’s house at the end of their breathtaking adventure, Marnie has made an important decision. She is going to turn her back on her sheltered, monotonous life, stay with the other three animals and hold on to something she never had before: true friends and sense of belonging.

The O’Sullivan Twins

This time, THE O’SULLIVAN TWINS have really overstepped the mark. What began as a bet ends in a wild chase through a luxury department store and they end up accused of stealing. They run away from school and are sent to the St. Clare’s boarding school by their parents. This is the start of a completely new life for them both. While Nanni (Isabel), the gentler of the twins, begins to make friends, hot-headed Hanni (Pat) finds it difficult to settle in. And when the St. Clare´s  hockey team plays the JoCats, the twins’ old school team, THE O’SULLIVAN TWINS are faced with their first big test and have to make a decision. An unexpected discovery comes to their aid. And when "St. Clares" is endangered, THE O’SULLIVAN TWINS finally realise that this is where they really belong. They hatch a bold rescue plan...

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Days to come

UFA Cinema presents DAYS TO COME A  Badlands Film production in co-operation with UFA Cinema and a coproduction with  WDR, Arte, and ARD Degeto. The film is funded by the Film Foundation NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, German Federal Film Board (Filmförderungsanstalt), HessenInvestFilm, Cine Tirol Film Fund and the German Federal Film Fund (Deutscher Filmförderfonds). Telepool Munich is handling global distribution.

Badlands Film, the film production Company of Matthias Glasner, Lars Kraume, Frank Döhmann and Jürgen Vogel and UFA Cinema will realize together the near future family drama DAYS TO COME

DAYS TO COME – based on a screenplay by Lars Kraume - follows the lives of a middle-class Berlin family from the present day into a realistic near future, a time of great uncertainty and change. After finishing university Laura Kuper (Bernadette Heerwagen) has to choose between her desire to have children and Hans (Daniel Brühl), the great love of her life. Her sister Cecilia (Johanna Wokalek) is driven into the depths of a newly emerging form of terrorism by her unrequited love for Konstantin (August Diehl), and Philip, the family’s youngest child, does his bit for Germany in a desperate war for the last Asian oil fields. A destabilised family deal with their hopes and fears as they face their future in a destabilised world    

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Fatherland

Berlin 1964. What if Germany had won the Second World War and the Nazis still ruled Germany? The international bestseller by Robert Harris portrays an unthinkable story as a breath-taking thriller: the corpse of a naked man is washed up on to the banks of the Havel a few days before Hitler's 75th birthday. The city of Berlin built by Albert Speer has been cleaned up and decked with flags for this national day of celebration.  

Greater Germany, which dominates the European Community, extends from the Rhine to the Uralas. The ending of the Cold War with the USA, which has continued since 1945, is Hitler’s new foreign policy goal. President Kennedy is about to make the first state visit by an American President. Against this backdrop, the sudden, violent death of a high party official is highly inconvenient. Sturmbannführer März of the criminal police investigates and with the help of German-American journalist Charlie Maguire comes dangerously close to a historical secret which has been carefully hidden for more than 20 years. With his novels “Fatherland”, “Enigma”, “Pompeii” and “Ghost”, Robert Harris has achieved a worldwide audience of millions. His latest novel, "Ghost", is currently being filmed by director Roman Polanski.

Devil`s kickers

Shadows flit across the roofs of the town. The gang races over rooftops, showing off cool parkour moves. They leap over every wall, kicking the football with daredevil stunts and spectacular passes through narrow alleyways and showing passers-by what real street soccer is all about. Moritz (HENRY HORN), sitting in the classroom, can hardly believe his eyes when Alex (DARIO BARBANTI), the leader of the gang, silently swings through the window into the classroom. Maybe there is hope after all!   After Moritz's parents (DIANA AMFT and BENNO FÜRMANN) split up, he and his mother were forced to move in with his grumpy grandfather, Rudi (REINER SCHÖNE). Of all people! It’s a whole new town and he’s off to a really difficult start. The only football club in the town rejects him brutally – and for football-crazy Moritz, a life without football is no life at all. But giving up is not an option! Moritz puts a team together in the schoolyard: the cool rooftop gang, Catrina (COSIMA HENMAN) – who may be a girl but scores every time from the penalty spot, Niko (SAMMY SCHEURITZEL), and the brothers Mehmet (YASSINE GOURAR) and Enes (KAAN AYDOGDU).     As THE DEVILKICKERS, they immediately begin to shake up the town’s playing fields and create a real buzz in the cup tournament. The adults can’t resist getting involved either. The grandfather, Rudi, who turns out to be all right after all, takes over as THE DEVILKICKERS’ coach. The fact that he comes up against his archrival Rothkirch (ARMIN ROHDE) is an additional incentive. Even Moritz's parents, who are both suffering badly from the separation and have been pretty ham-fisted lately, meet again on the football field. Nerves are raw even before kick-off, as the greatest adventure for Moritz and THE DEVILKICKERS is only just beginning...      

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Typically Emma - Or What?

Pimples, boys, annoying parents - who doesn’t know the pitfalls of puberty? This is exactly where 14 year-old Emma currently finds herself…and she leaves absolutely nothing out...

A story about friendship, love and first encounters with young adulthood. An enchanting, fun film based on the successful series of interactive teen books by Gerlis Zillgens. 

Jesus Loves Me

A romantic comedy based on the eponymous bestseller by David Safier, who takes on the ever-present, universal and insurmountable subject of gender with his "divine" satire.  We accompany Marie, who is hoping for divine inspiration in her search for Mr. Right and ends up meeting the Messiah in person, or so she thinks.

No Man’s Land

A compelling, sweeping story of East and West (Germany), which deals with the sweeping issues of Stasi, defection and loyalty among friends within a gripping love story. It is directed by Toke Constantin Hebbeln, who won a student Oscar in 2006 and caused a national and international stir with his debut effort “Nimmermeer” (Nevermore).  

"No Man's Land" is Hebbeln’s first major film project, for which he also wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Ronny Schalk. A UFA Cinema production in collaboration with Frisbeefilms.

Prototype

Cult comic author Ralf König presents a completely new take on the Story of Creation with Adam, Eve, the apple and the serpent. For God said, Let there be light(s, camera, action)... the result is a very amusing film.