FinsterworldMovies like Finsterworld
- Key Features:
- Social commentary, Parallel narratives, Interconnected stories, German history, Love, Intimacy, Hatred, Human condition, Character study, Bleak, Melancholy, Isolation
- Tone:
- serious, cynical, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Film festival enthusiasts, Art house cinema lovers, Socially conscious viewers, Fans of character-driven narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Discomfort
Finsterworld

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.
Finsterworld
An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.

Horror anthology consisting of three episodes directed by Jörg Buttgereit, Andreas Marschall and Michal Kosakowski.

Upon learning that his days are numbered, a man and an old friend return to an old house that connects them by a dark secret. Along with three women and a mysterious old man, the group journeys into a horrifying abyss of debauchery and moral mayhem, leading to a fatal turn of events, during which the darkest human depths are revealed.

A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block.

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

Two different women – a young photo model and her boss – dream about a happy life with beloved men. Their dreams are as different as they are.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

In a small town in Northern Germany, a penniless German veteran is offered a job as a deliveryman by an alcoholic Turkish entrepreneur, through which the former meets the latter's wife.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.

When a notorious German serial killer is captured after committing some of the most heinous acts against humanity ever imaginable, a farmer and police officer from a sleepy rural community on the outskirts of Berlin is drawn into the case as he searches for the answers to a murder that has shaken his tight-knit community.

An account of the events before and after a murder committed by a disturbed businessman in a strained marriage, and what led him to perform such a shocking act.

A love triangle forms between post-Enlightenment writer Friedrich Schiller and two sisters -- one who became his wife, and the other, his biographer.

Parallel love stories of three young women in Berlin: Hannah - an unhappy attorney who sexually demeans herself in order to get at least some love and romance, Leni who runs a coffee shop and has just been ditched by her long term boyfriend, and Vivienne who ends up falling in love with a puppy-eyed pasta designer with 21 dogs.

A husband and wife lie to each other about their weekend travel plans, only to both show up at the family's country house with their lovers.

Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.

After nine years in psychiatric detention Theo, who has brutally assaulted and raped three women, is released. Living in a supervised community, he connects well with his social worker Sascha, finds a job at a print shop and even a girlfriend, Nettie, his principal's brittle and estranged daughter. But even though superficially everything seems to work out Theo's seething rage remains ready to erupt.

Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.

A woman who's returned home with her two kids to attend her sister's wedding must suddenly defend their lives against older people on a killing spree.

After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

Hans is a street fruit peddler and born loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However, the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.

A group of German construction workers set out for a foreign construction site in the Bulgarian province. The strange country awakens adventure feelings among the men. At the same time, they are confronted with their prejudices and mistrust. For two of the men, a nearby village becomes the stage for a competition for the recognition and favor of the village.

Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. He enters an abusive relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen in an attempt to climb the social ladder. His desperation for love and affection soon spirals into tragedy.

A killer is released from prison and breaks into a remote home to kill a woman, her handicapped son and her pretty daughter.

Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.

After aspiring poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his law exams, he's sent to a sleepy provincial court to reform. Instead, he falls for Lotte, a young woman who is promised to another man.

After reluctantly moving to the German Alps with her father and his new family, Gretchen discovers that their new town hides sinister secrets, as she's plagued by strange noises and frightening visions of a woman pursuing her.

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

While on a Mediterranean vacation, a seemingly happy boyfriend and girlfriend find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.

Mitsuko, a young student, encounters a series of horrifying incidents set in alternate realities where people wind up dead in the most horrendous fashion.

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

A number of complicated relationships develop between a circus ringmaster, his estranged wife and his lover.

On the beaches of Kenya they’re known as "Sugar Mamas" —European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian and mother of a daughter entering puberty, travels to this vacation paradise, moving from beach to beach.

A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.

Anita, a young woman with a troubled childhood and a hunger for love, finds a soul mate in Erik, a kindly college student.

A strange family: 17-year-old Phil lives with his mother and twin sister in an old mansion on the outskirts of town. When he returns from summer camp, the mood in the mansion has soured somehow. Phil doesn’t worry about it, hanging out with his best friend Kat instead. When he starts to feel attracted to a mysterious new student at school, Phil is plunged into emotional turmoil only exacerbated by the trouble at home.

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. But Marisa's convictions begin to crumble when she meets a young Afghan refugee, and she learns that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way.

A young woman urgently seeks to navigate the maze of contemporary Taipei and find a future. She hopes that her boyfriend Lung is the key to the future, but Lung is stuck in a past that combines baseball and traditional loyalty that leads him to squander his nest egg bailing her father out of financial trouble.

College and high school serve as the backdrop for two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil.

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.

A young East German woman leaves her husband and business partner and relocates to a West German city to start anew as an accountant, but he soon catches up with her.

The narrative portrays a plain man who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world.

Young-hee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director, escapes to Hamburg. But when she returns to Korea and meets with friends for drinks, startling confessions emerge.

A woman sexually assaulted by her new boss's brother-in-law tries to move on as if nothing happened, but the night weighs heavily on her mind and body.

Monika lives with Rob, a corpse she loves. Her dilemma intensifies when she meets Mark and considers a normal life with him. She must choose between her affection for Rob and a new relationship.

Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.

The film follows Kaspar Hauser, who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man who wears a black overcoat and top hat who feeds him.

In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Dong-soo, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.

A young writer brings a collection of short stories to a big Moscow publishing house. The manuscript stays at the office and mysteriously influences the lives of anyone who opens it and reads at least one page. There are four stories in the manuscript, and four readers whose lives are changed after reading them. The situations range from realistic to absurd to thrilling to create a rich portrait of life in contemporary Russia and showcase the thoughts, feelings and ambitions of people who live there.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

Two university students gain insight into life and love as they get to know each other during a road trip across Europe.

The chronicles of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.

Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.

Hanna and Simon are in a 20 year marriage with an unexciting relationship. By chance, they both meet and start separate affairs with Adam. Adam has no idea that his two lovers are married, until they are all found out when Hanna becomes pregnant, with the natural doubts stemming from their situation.

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.

A portrait of the flaws and peculiarities of four type of girls living in different districts of Rome.

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.

The increasingly politicised Emanuelle gets deeper into fighting an international trade composed of sex, violence and high profile players.

Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.

Follows six very different men and their struggles with women, family and work. Yet, they are somehow connected to each other.

1920s Germany. Two sisters aged six years, no sooner see their remaining parent buried when they are torn apart. Lotte goes to live with her upper middle class Dutch aunt in Holland, Anna to work as a farm hand on her German uncle's rural farm. The World War II impacts each of their lives and finally in old age they meet again.

J. is depressed. E. lives peacefully. S. tries to get back with his wife. G. resorts to anxiolytics. P. plays seduction games. María and Sara exchange their husbands. L. calls his lover in a peculiar way.

A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.

Loneliness, death and the meaning of life, explored through vastly separate lives colliding in interweaving short stories set in future Earth.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

Undine is a historian and tour guide at the Berlin City Museum specializing in urban development, while Christoph is an industrial diver. Linked by a love of the water, the two form an intense bond, which can only do so much to help Undine overcome the considerable baggage of her former affair.

At a Greek hotel in the off-season, a chambermaid, a man obsessed with BMW cars, and a photo-store clerk attempt to film and photograph various badly re-enacted struggles between a man and a woman.

German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.

The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.

The professional and emotional cross-currents between two romantically entwined theater actors played by the director’s son Louis and Anna Mouglalis.

A 14-year-old video enthusiast obsessed with violent films decides to make one of his own and show it to his parents, with tragic results.

A German student, Stefan, now finished with his studies, hitchhikes to Paris. There he meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, who he follows to Ibiza. The two begin a sad and dark path into heroin addiction.

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.

Summer of 1939. Zosia is a young Polish girl who is deeply in love with Ukrainian Petro. Their great love will be put to the test when her father decides to marry her to a wealthy widower Skiba. Right after wedding she is left alone because her husband is drafted to the Polish army for the war with Germany. Meanwhile, tensions grow due to Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians living side by side.

Three people and a baby set off on separate journeys, along the same road; their disparate dreams and stories intertwine amidst the breathtaking deserted Patagonic route.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

When a border guard with a sixth sense for identifying smugglers encounters the first person she cannot prove is guilty, she is forced to confront terrifying revelations about herself and humankind.

Based on the true story of Benjamin Prufer and Sreykeo Solvan. The unexpected and uncertain love story of Sreykeo, a 21 year old bar girl in Phnom Penh and Ben, a young German student traveling to Cambodia on a post graduation summer trip. When Ben returns home to Germany he discovers that Sreyko is sick and he takes on the responsibility to save her. On the way he discovers a world where not everyone is dealt the same cards and where motivations are not always pure.

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars. She's an artist in her mid-thirties, and appears to have everything - not least a constant stream of men at her beck and call. But when the two finally meet, they discover that they have a lot more in common than appeared at first sight...



