Castles and Cottages

Feb 9, 1957

3h 23m

★ 8.0

Overview

Lifelong hard work for the count makes the servant Anton a cripple. Everybody calls him Crooked Anton. When, after the end of the war, the land of the count gets divided amongst the farmers, Anton receives a piece and hopes to be able to work freely. But an old debt and intrigue keep Anton and his family from finding peace. The farmers of the village begin to discover their own power when Annegret, Anton's daughter, leaves. Is a new beginning possible for Anton? This film paints an impressive panorama of the development of a minor village in Mecklenburg from the end of the war to the uprising of 17 June 1953.

Genres

Drama

Production Companies

DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme

Castles and Cottages Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Krummer Anton

Raimund Schelcher

Marthe

Erika Dunkelmann

Annegret

Karla Runkehl

estate inspector Bröker

Erwin Geschonneck

Kalle Buddenboom

Harry Hindemith

Christel Sikura

Helga Göring

Jens Voss

Wilhelm Puchert

Hede

Angelika Hurwicz

Klimm

Dieter Perlwitz

old Sikura

Hans Finohr

Elisabeth Bröker

Marga Legal

old Sikura

Lotte Loebinger

Orphaned after a Nazi air raid, Paulette, a young Parisian girl, runs into Michel, an older peasant boy, and the two quickly become close. Together, they try to make sense of the chaotic and crumbling world around them, attempting to cope with death as they create a burial ground for Paulette's deceased pet dog. Eventually, however, Paulette's stay with Michel's family is threatened by the harsh realities of wartime.

6.7

Crime and Punishment

Feb 12, 2002

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

6.8

The Assault

Feb 6, 1986

At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.

6.8

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger

Oct 1, 2006

This drama is based on the childhood memories of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi, who was one of the few black native Germans in Nazi Germany. In 1935 at the age of nine, he lives with his German mother in a small flat in Hamburg's working class district Barmbek, while his father and grandfather had left the country. Although the boy is not persecuted by the Nazis and dreams of joining the Hitler Youth, his skin color makes him a target for racist abuse...

4.9

Requiem

Feb 4, 1982

When a young boy comes in to see a doctor abourt a red mark on his face, the doctor's wife welcomes him into the consulting room instead. As they talk, she offers him something to eat and then notes that his manner of eating is just like that of her previous husband, who died in prison many years earlier. It turns out that the young man had been his cell mate for a year, and he tells her the story of how her husband died. She then remembers (in flashbacks) how she had helped her first husband rid himself of his sexual repression, and how she had promised him she would marry her current husband if she were widowed. It seems her doctor-husband was a man who could remain untouched through any political climate, and was much admired by her first husband. Now that her memories have been awakened by the young man's account, she ignores the repeated phone calls of her current husband and decides to rid this young man of his own sexual repressions.

6.6

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

Apr 7, 2005

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

8.0

Vera - Der schwere Weg der Erkenntnis

Jan 29, 1989

The story of Vera Lenz, a young and very attractive woman who is the daughter of a pastor and comes from a small coastal village on the North Sea (FRG). She is intelligent, determined, but also hungry for adventure, and she fascinates the world of men. She has developed into an accomplished secretary with excellent foreign language skills - predestined for an international career. Her meeting with Colonel Shelvin paves the way for this: Vera is able to take up a position at NATO headquarters in Brussels and, thanks to her achievements, she travels to many countries and meets countless interesting people.

5.8

The Good German

Dec 15, 2006

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

10.0

Collin

Dec 6, 1981

No overview available.

7.5

The House in Karp Lane

Mar 12, 1965

The film depicts the fate of the residents of an apartment block in Prague’s Jewish quarter following the invasion by German troops in 1939. Among them is an elderly widow who had once disowned her son and now wishes to bring him to Brazil; there are also the owners of a stationery shop, who are driven to ruin by the German occupiers. The caretaker Glaser, who is of German descent, also comes under pressure when his son is arrested in a communist pub. To save his own skin, he informs on two young people who are active in the resistance.

7.4

Ashes and Diamonds

Oct 3, 1958

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

7.5

Kahlschlag

Oct 9, 1993

Robin is 16 and has had enough: permanent trouble at school and at home. On the run from his dull everyday life, he joins a group of skinheads. The clique strengthens their sense of belonging by beating up foreign youths. This is how the "apolitical" boy slips into the right-wing scene, and it's not easy to get out of it. When they injure a Turkish girl during a robbery, Robin, of all people, is questioned by the police.

6.9

The Murderers Are Among Us

Oct 15, 1946

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

7.6

Germany, Year Zero

Jul 11, 1948

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

No Image

7.0

Warten ist der Tod

Nov 6, 1999

No overview available.

7.0

The Lenz Papers

Oct 4, 1986

Four-part german limited serial about the baden revolution in 1848 and 1849.

7.0

Die Holzbaronin

Feb 26, 2013

A Black Forest timber industrialist has to assert herself against male supremacy and economic difficulties in the first half of the 20th century.

6.7

Barefoot Gen 2

Jun 14, 1986

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

No Image

0.0

Maryam's Report

Feb 5, 2009

Dr. Parsa and his daughter, Bahar, are on the way to Khoramshahr to set up a specialized hospital there. It seems their cold relationship is related to this journey. Reaching there, Bahar finds a diary of a girl at her age called Maryam which was written in the same day, 30 years ago; 2 days before the first day of schools, and also the start of Iran-Iraq war! The girlish joy that Maryam describes in the first pages of the diary, the sudden invasion of enemies to their town, and finally her love story which is mentioned in the diary, motivates Bahar to continue reading it. Maryam was in love with a young intern who was working in the town's only clinic. Now Bahar thinks that the intern could be his father.

0.0

Die schöne Wilhelmine

Sep 6, 1984

No overview available.