Known for Acting
Hardly released from prison, the real estate swindler Thomas tries to get rid of his half-brother Roland. Roland has Downs Syndrome and his mother has granted him a lifelong right to live in her house. But Thomas wants to sell it as quickly as possible.
The accountant Adam can hardly believe it: Shortly before his 40th anniversary at the Moser family beauty business, his boss Rob sends him off to retirement early. The job will soon be taken over by AI! To get back at the beauty guru, Adam kidnaps his wife and famous brand face Evelyn. Unfortunately, it doesn't occur to Rob to pay a ransom for her. On the contrary: the vain star surgeon wants to rejuvenate his relationship with 29-year-old beauty model Lene anyway and is even grateful to the kidnapper! When Evelyn makes it clear to Adam that without her help he will neither get the money he craves nor get out of the affair in one piece, the two of them join forces. They come up with a brazen plan to empty Rob's offshore accounts.
In the face of the bucket wheel excavators in the brown coal mining area eating their way through the muddy Rhineland soil, the Lange family is at a crossroads: what do we do when the old has to go and the new is so uncertain? The young entrepreneur Marcel Lange, hungry for success, wants to build a new high-end village and achieve social advancement. To this end, he has already had the prototype Villa Verena built on the edge of the open-cast mine, where the largest renaturalized lake in the world is to be created in just a few years. But his sister Franca is against it. In the old village, which is about to be demolished, she is holding the fort and tinkering in the basement on an electricity storage unit that will supply all the houses with green energy in the future and make them self-sufficient. In the midst of this chaos, widow and mother Angelika Lange has other plans. She wants to finally take a vacation with the relocation bonus and doesn't always want to worry about others.
In 1981, all of Germany fears for the life of Johannes Erlemann, the eleven-year-old son of entrepreneur Jochem Erlemann, who was in custody on suspicion of fraud at the time of his son's abduction. The boy was snatched off his bicycle by his kidnappers, put into a van and then spend two terrible weeks in a shed in the forest fighting for his life having been chained to a wall and left without daylight, while the kidnappers try to extort a large ransom from his wealthy parents.
Exil tells the story of a chemical engineer of foreign origin who feels discriminated and bullied at work, plunging him into an identity crisis.
Ben (11) and Tariq (12) have more in common than they realise. Both are new to school and football and have lost their homeland. Ben's village will soon became an open brown coal mine. He and his family move to a nearby city but Ben fails to fit in at his new school. Bullied, he returns secretly to his old, abandoned home. His one pleasure, football, pales with the arrival of Tariq, a Syrian refugee and better player. But when bureaucracy stops Tariq playing, he runs away, Ben finds him and learns that Tariq is desperate to be reunited with his scattered family. Jealousy on the football field becomes friendship and understanding.
Hans calls his girlfriend Heinz, which tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. They're a typical couple who're stuck in a rut after eight years. Hans works at a copy shop and Heinz is an actress relegated to voicing a cartoon stoplight. On their anniversary, they go to the movies. It's a romance. But the spark on screen just doesn't strike them. When Hans gives Heinz's ex her phone number instead of putting up a fight over her, Heinz' alarm bells go off: How can this be love? They decided to make a list of everything than makes up a real love: Romance, desire, passion, jealousy, drama – deep feelings, in other words. Hans and Heinz methodically start checking off their list and realize: Real life is nothing like the movies.
Con artist Maik Schäfer switches his fake conductor's suit for a real soutane while trying to escape custody and ends up in the catholic parish of Läuterberg. Standing in for Vicar Sanman, Maik participates in the parish members' fates and fortunes, and deals with their problems in his own unconventional way.
The happy gay couple David and Khaled would love to marry publicly - if there weren't Khaled's homophobic father Faisal, David's pseudo orthodox Jewish acting mother Lea and a possible paternity and gallery insolvency.
