Peter Weiss’ monumental 1965 stage play, among the greatest artworks on the Holocaust, condenses the testimonies of witnesses and the accused during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-1965. This ultra-faithful film adaptation builds, across four hours, in its intensity and graphically described detail.
The relationship between the sensitive free spirit and self-proclaimed feminist Luca and his father Mathi, an old-school man with a classic understanding of his role, is complicated. Now father and son are expecting a baby at the same time. When the two of them happen to be attending the same seminar for fathers-to-be - isolated in the woods among like-minded men - their relationship dispute escalates.
What hurts more: losing the wife to her younger lover after 21 years of marriage or having to share a lottery win with her after the breakup? The parcel carrier Henry doesn't want to give up half of his unexpected wealth because of the divorce. While his wife Ellen wants to make a clean break with the new beginning, he tries to save the long-hopeful marriage, but only on paper. The disappointment hurts too much to share the cash fairly! Neither his own daughter, who needs money for a journalism school, nor his best friend Mehmet know about the new fortune. His "favorite colleague" Mona either doesn't like the fact that Henry doesn't tell her the truth. She doesn't really recognize Henry anymore, with whom she has fallen in love. Ellen is also surprised that Henry, who is chronically exhausted, can afford an expensive racing horse. But there's a reason for the secrecy, because Henry wants to make his dream come true to win the Grand Prix of Germany. His maxim: Believe in losers too!
Angela Merkel's decision in autumn 2015 to open the borders for refugees split the country - some praised the moral stance, others criticized the surrender of sovereignty. Yet what would appear to be well-planned activity is in reality a policy of muddling along, chance, trial and error. The Driven Ones is a chronicle of the refugee crisis which shows that the political actors are being driven along, crushed between self-imposed constraints and events that have spun out of control.