The daily realities of tyranny and morality behind the Berlin Wall are intertwined in this brilliant German debut George Orwell would recognize much in The Lives Of Others, a gripping and distressing vision of life under the jackboot of state repression. Set in the former East Germany in 1984, its drama takes place under the shadow of the Berlin Wall in a country ruled by the secret police, the Stasi. Debut writer-director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck crafts an intricate tale about other people's lives as State Security Captain Gerd Wiesler (Mühe) is ordered to monitor one of the country's top playwrights, Georg Dreyman (Koch) and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Gedeck). As the watcher and the watched intertwine, The Lives Of Others shows us the way in which the daily realities of tyranny threaten to dehumanize everyone involved.
			Drama that plays out in and around Hitler's bunker during the final weeks of the Second World War in Europe. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, written and produced by Bernd Eichinger and starring Bruno Ganz If you believe cinema is a medium that can document every facet of the human experience, even our history at its most extreme, then films that try to present a rational, credible portrait of Adolf Hitler are entirely valid.
			The collapse of the Berlin Wall brings more headaches than rejoicing in this blackly comic German satire Falling into a coma just before the unexpected collapse of the Berlin Wall, hardened Communist Christiane (Saß) awakes a few months later in a totally changed world where everything she's ever believed in has disappeared for good. It should have been a shock to the system, but Christiane doesn't realise anything's changed because her son Alex (Brühl) is under doctor's orders to keep her in the dark in case she suffers another - potentially fatal - heart attack.
			Winner of the 2003 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Writer-director Caroline Link's touching effort follows one German-Jewish family as they escape their country to head for the dusty plains of East Africa at the outset of World War II Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig, Nowhere In Africa (Nirgendwo In Afrika) begins in 1938 when German-Jewish lawyer Walter Redlich (Ninidze), already ensconced in Kenya, sends for his wife Jettel (Köhler) and shy daughter Regina (Kurka). His words are defiantly practical: "Please bring a refrigerator, which we will really need, and not our china or anything like that."