Movies by Falk Rockstroh

Maria am Wasser

Die kluge Bauerntochter
The Farmer's Daughter is given a riddle to solve by the king: "Come to me, neither naked nor clothed, neither walking nor riding, nor driving, neither by day nor by night, neither with gift nor without gift." If she solves it, she had proved her cleverness, the king promises not only to release her father from prison, but also to marry her...

Alive and Ticking
Eva lives a happy life with her father, an unsuccessful but always optimistic car salesman, her consumerist mother, and her quirky grandmother. But Eva is a tad different - she suffers from Tourette's syndrome. Her family has long been accustomed to her tics and the accompanying insults and bullying, and Eva has come to grips with her role as an outsider. When her father gets a job offer to work in Berlin, they must suddenly leave their familiar surroundings. But Eva won't have it, this move must be prevented - at any price!

Lebensraum
Marie Kaufmann has to face an unusual interview that decides not only her own fate.

The Actress
The year 1933: Successful actress Maria Rheine is in love with her Jewish colleague Mark Löwenthal. When the Nazis implement the racist Nuremberg Laws, their relationship is severely endangered. Defiant Maria decides to stay together with Mark and ends her promising career: She assumes a Jewish identity and continues to work under the name Manja Löwenthal. She and Mark perform at the Jewish Theatre in Berlin, until they become victims of an intrigue: Their colleague Judith, who has a crush on Mark, denounces them to the secret police.

Hands of a Mother
A family reunion aboard a ship becomes a turning point in the life of 39-year-old engineer Markus. When his son Adam (4) gets a little cut after going to the bathroom with his grandmother Renate, Markus recalls for the first time what his mother did to him when he was a little boy. Markus and his wife Monika find themselves confronted with an ugly truth of the kind you wouldn’t think a mother capable of.

Neandertal
17-year-old Guido suffers since his early childhood from neurodermatitis. After being taken to the hospital due to a heavy attack, he starts to question his personal and familiar environment and discovers that his parents’ relationship – which he assumed to be happy and sound – is built on lies. Unable to deal with this disappointment, he flees from it and moves in with his older brother and his roommates...

The Components of Love
Sophie and Georg once loved each other, but now they have split up. Almost the entire film takes place in front of the same doorway in Berlin. In an elliptical way, the individual scenes portray a family for whom the word patchwork is the new normal — and take a laconic look at the everyday irrationalities of love.

Angst
Randolph Tiefenthaler and his wife Rebecca have bought a beautiful 1920s house and move in with their children. The only condition for the sale was that the former owner's brother would be allowed to continue living in the basement.

All Good
If you don‘t see things as a problem, you don‘t have one. This is the attitude Janne is trying to maintain towards the fact of being raped by the brother-in-law of her new boss. In the aftermath of her private bankruptcy, she needs a job and hates the idea of being a victim. Still, remaining silent about the incident has its consequences.