Alva Schäfer

The Queen's Gambit

In a 1950s orphanage, a young girl reveals an astonishing talent for chess and begins an unlikely journey to stardom while grappling with addiction.

Beck is back!

Neben der Spur

Hamburg thriller with great depth

Phoenix

While the heads of Europe's largest companies launch a forum in the Alps claiming to combat climate change and save a glacier, the Phoenix group takes action across the continent; six young activists simultaneously kidnap the children of these executives with the goal to expose their greenwashing and force them to keep their promises before it's too late

Gluey Feathers

It’s summer harvest on a vegetable farm in northern Germany. The daily routine of seasonal worker Frida and her international colleagues is shaped by fixed rhythms and repetitive tasks. As the end of the season approaches an uncertainty about what comes next begins to grow. Yet when a bird gets trapped in the greenhouses, time seems to stand still for a moment.

Skill Issue

Simon spends a summer day by the river with Enes's clique, whom he knows from the neighborhood. Between moments of uncertainty and sluggish conversations, the hours slip by. But then Marie shows up and Simon is suddenly wide awake.

Free Country

Former East Germany, 1992. Patrick Stein and Markus Bach, two very different police officers, are commissioned to investigate the disappearance of two female teenagers in a remote area of the country. Did they run away from home or did something more terrible happen to them?

The Light

A portrait of a modern family between collapse and new beginnings dealing with the big issues of our times, in a world that is reeling. Tim, Milena, their almost grown-up twins Frieda and Jon and their illegitimate son Dio - this is the Engels family, who seemingly have nothing left to hold them together when housekeeper Farrah enters their lives. The mysterious Syrian woman puts the Engels' emotional world to an unexpectedly wild test.

The Austrian Case

End of the Circle

Four generations of women in one family struggle with the expectations placed on them as mothers and partners. Their own dreams and desires for self-fulfillment are often left behind in the process. How can the traumas of the past be prevented from being passed down to the next generation? Will the cycle ever end, and will it ever be broken?