Movies by Dagmar Manzel

Head Under Water

Head Under Water

Something terrible is about to happen in a small town in Germany. Nobody knows the reason why, except one person: Rico Bartsch. The 15-year old grammar school pupil, an absolute outsider, is in love with the most beautiful girl at his school. What in the beginning is a longing that can never be fulfilled will come true at the end of the story. Beautiful Regine will beg for Rico’s love. Until then several inhabitants of the town will die an unnatural death...

According to Plan

According to Plan

John Rabe

John Rabe

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

It's a Jungle Out There

It's a Jungle Out There

Anna, 17 years old, is happy to throw her first big birthday party without her parents, but some of her guests are so stoned that they leave a big chaos and, even worse, destroy the favorite record of Anna's father. After the return of her shocked and angry parents, Anna runs away to Munich with her admirer Simon. They discover the nightlife jungle and get to know some typical urban guys. Meanwhile, Anna's parents get in touch with Simon's and try to find their children. On the way across Munich, they remember their own wild and restless youth…

Kati: A Freestyle That Stays

Kati: A Freestyle That Stays

Four years after the end of the German Democratic Republic, Katarina Witt, two-time Olympic champion, is planning her comeback to prove to herself and to a united Germany that she still has what it takes. To do this, she has to team up with her former coach Jutta Müller and complete the toughest training of her life.

Remembrance

Remembrance

Hannah, a young Jewish girl, is rescued from a concentration camp by her Polish boyfriend, and believes he died after their perilous escape. More than 30 years later, the married Hannah faces an emotional crisis when she learns he's alive.

Willenbrock

Willenbrock

Second-hand car sales man Willenbrock has everything that he could ever wish for. He is married, has two lovers, a cottage in the German city Grünen, and a BMW. Yet one day while at his cottage he gets mugged and his life is drastically changed. Little by little the world he once felt safe in falls apart around him.

Not All Were Murderers

Not All Were Murderers

Based on the childhood memories of actor Michael Degen, the movie deals with the everyday struggle to survive as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As his father had died in 1940 after being released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Michael and his mother fear to be deported themselves. They manage to live in Berlin with false names and faked papers, hidden by several, often broken, people...

The Boy with the Big Black Dog

The Boy with the Big Black Dog

A little boy tries to keep a huge Newfoundland dog in his family's apartment.

Silent Summer

Silent Summer

The movie focuses on Kristine, an art historian. Kristine's personal life take a dramatic twist when the whole family is gathering together and the secrets of the past are being revealed at her gracious mansion in the French countryside.

Dancing at the Dump

Dancing at the Dump

The tragic love story between 17 year-old Gerat Lauter, who is in search of the truth, and his much older teacher Claudia, as it becomes a criminal case with state complicity in the chaotic GDR autumn of 1989.

Schtonk!

Schtonk!

Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value...

Liebe ist die halbe Miete

Liebe ist die halbe Miete

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 apartm...

Gloria, die schönste Kuh meiner Schwester

Gloria, die schönste Kuh meiner Schwester

As Green As It Gets

As Green As It Gets

Georg "Schorsch" Kempter is a gardener in a small Bavarian town, working day-in, day-out in his nursery, which is facing bankruptcy. He doesn't like to talk much. He never has. His marriage has long lost all its magic and on top of that, he has trouble to connect with his daughter. Only when he is flying in his own rickety biplane, Schorsch feels truly free. When the owner of the local golf course tries to cheat Schorsch for his money, claiming the shade of green of the grass Schorsch has planted on the golf course is not right, insolvency s...

Nachbarinnen

Nachbarinnen

The single package-delivery woman Dora lives a somewhat reclusive life in a high-rise in Leipzig and gets through everyday life with her dry sense of humor. But her quiet, well-ordered life spins out of control when she has to hide her mysteriously fascinating Polish neighbor Jola – who believes to have accidentally killed someone. Dora is hesitant at first to take her in, but she cannot seem to shake her fascination with Jola. Dora's trust in the direct, impulsive woman grows – Jola seems to ask exactly those questions no one else dares to ...

Goebbels und Geduldig

Goebbels und Geduldig