Jördis Triebel

Between the years 1949 and 1990, roughly four million people left the GDR for West Germany. „West“ (adapted from the book by Julia Franck) tells the story of a young mother, who together with her son, leaves the GDR to try for a new beginning in the West. But she discovers she has to undergo more interrogations by the Allied secret services who treat many refugees with the suspicion that they may be working for the Stasi. The Emergency Refugee Centre turns from a place of safety into a cold war location, proving once more that one cannot leave without taking along one’s past. With great personal and political power, „West“ shows the difficulties of daring to start a new life - if the past has taken away all faith.

At the bitter end of WWII, a German deserter and a young woman are drawn into bloody battle with a group of Nazis hunting for hidden gold.

Set after the fall of the Berlin wall at the dawn of a new chapter for the city, the story begins one life-changing morning in the Berlin low-income district of Marzahn. Single mother KATHI is about to embark on a new chapter of her own. She nailed the phone interview with a local hair salon and was hired as new manager and stylist. When she arrives, the owner takes one look at her and tells her that she does not “fit” in after all. But Kathi doesn’t have thick skin for nothing, literally and figuratively. Just as she is about to give him a piece of her mind, she spots a much better solution right across the street – available salon space! Kathi has an epiphany: She’ll open her own salon!