Ethnologist and adventurer, Count Eric von Rosen was a man of contradictions: interested in the natives of Africa and colonial racism. Nestler embarks on a journey in search of his grandfather.

The film is based on the eponymous 1960 novel by author Peter Weiss. In this autobiographical text, the author describes the years of his childhood and youth in Germany in the 20s and 30s as well as the flight of his half-Jewish family from persecution by the Nazis. This odyssey also portrays the young first-person narrator’s struggle for his artistic existence, as he was striving to establish himself as a painter and writer. In a free, sensual essay between fiction and document, realistic description and stylised invention, the film attempts to kindle today’s flame based on the past’s, and to create a new and vibrant third work from it. (Locarno Festival)

This is a small, intense film based on Schoenberg’s opus of the same name with the subtitle “danger, fear, catastrophe”. It deals with emerging fascism and the persecution of Jews, as well as with their historical continuities.

In 1960, in a rural part of West Germany, an American military base is set up in a small village of 250 inhabitants. Now, 6000 soldiers are living in the region, and although no one really likes them, everybody is doing business with them. Some turn old barns in "typically American bars" where GIs can spend their pay for drinks; numerous prostitutes are visiting the region regularly to allow the Americans to forget about their homesickness for several costly minutes; others benefit from the construction of a military air base. Robert Neidhardt belongs to the last group. He is a disillusioned man who only wants to make some quick money. Robert supplies the gravel for the runway construction. But the black market turns out to be most profitable: Robert sells the gravel underhand to German contractors, thus earning twice with every delivery. But one night, Robert is pursued by the police who want to stop black market activities. On his flight, Robert runs over two pedestrians. Although the accident is not his fault, Robert does not go to the police, and his unscrupulousness takes him to extreme measures.