Torsten Ranft

Lullaby to my Father

The film intertwines historical events and intimate memories. I observe how architecture represents the transformations of society and those who give form to this architecture. We follow the journey of Munio, my father, born in 1909 in Silesia, Poland, the son of a tenant farmer of a Prussian junker. At the age of 18, Munio goes to Berlin and Dessau to meet Walter Gropius, Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then deported to Basel. He left for Palestine. Upon his arrival in Haifa, he began a career as an architect and adapted European modernist principles to the Middle East.

Line of Separation

After the fall of the Third Reich, the small town of Tannbach is cruelly divided between East and West regimes and the town’s inhabitants suffer the consequences. A gripping historical drama exploring the devastating effects decades of conflict had on communities from the end of the Second War War to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Naked Among Wolves

Taking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long prepared uprising of the concentration camp prisoners against the SS.

Beyond the Blue Border

GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

The Young Karl Marx

26 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 in Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who has been investigating the sordid birth of the British working class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.

Four Minutes

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

KDD - Kriminaldauerdienst

Berlin Blues

In October 1989, the part of the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg called SO 36, had been largely shut off by the Wall from the rest of the city for 28 years. A lethargic sub-culture of students, artists, bohemians and barflys had flourished among crumbling buildings. Part of that microcosm is barkeeper Frank, semi-formally called 'Herr Lehmann' by friends and patrons. He hangs out drinking, sports utter disregard for anything beyond SO 36 and lazily pursues an affair with cook Katrin. His lifestyle is gradually disturbed, when his parents show up for a visit, things go awry with Katrin and his best friend Karl starts to act strange. Meanwhile, political turmoil mounts on the other side of the Wall.

Für immer ein Mörder - Der Fall Ritter

At the beginning of 2000, the young commissioner Yvonne Weber moved from Frankfurt am Main to Eisenach. Together with the local colleague Frank Wolf, she is to review an unresolved murder case from the GDR era. The investigation team encounters inconsistencies in the file and it becomes clear that there is no interest in truth-clarifying the Eisenach department and the prosecutor's office in Gotha.

The Unbearable Lightness of the Revolution

East Germany, 1988. 19-year-old Franka doesn't really care for politics. She prefers going to the disco and dreaming about seeing Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson live in concert. But beneath her carefree façade, she is scarred by the loss of her baby brother. But then she meets Stefan: He's young, idealistic, and part of an environmental activist group. A mix that makes Franka instantly make fall for him – and his group, which welcomes her with open arms. But this wild, revolutionary influence does not stay unnoticed: Her mother, who's with the Party, is worried about Franka. As Stefan's group loses the support of the church, leaving them vulnerable to the state, Stefan and Franka are soon in the government's line of fire…