Mr. Darkness

Vera Klunert actually leads a fulfilled life. She has been happily married to Andreas for almost 25 years, has a self-confident, grown-up daughter, lives in a dignified house on the best Dresden hillside and works as a designer in the family leather goods company. But one day Andreas reveals to her that the company is not doing as well as Vera always thought. On the contrary: if a financially strong partner cannot be found soon, the traditional company has to file for bankruptcy. However, Andreas has already identified a potential investor. At the first meeting with the Viennese entrepreneur, Vera could hardly believe her eyes: Her husband's future partner is Vera's childhood sweetheart Werner Hausmann - a love that broke 30 years ago because Werner let her sit in a planned escape attempt to the West and has since then never reported again. It is understandable that Vera, unlike Werner, is not particularly happy about the unexpected reunion. Only when she finds a collection of old letters that her mother had secretly disappeared at the time and that prove that Werner was innocent of the failed escape does the situation relax. Not only that: the old love between the two soon seems to re-emerge. When Andreas, who had no idea of the previous relationship, observes Vera and Werner in a precarious situation, a marriage crisis ensues. The jealous Andreas breaks the contract with Werner, and after a heated argument, Vera leaves the common house. Just at the moment when Andreas wants to reconcile with his wife, he learns that Vera would like to travel to Vienna with Werner in order to gain some "distance". The final break between the once happy couple thus seems inevitable.

Mixing elements of narrative, experimental, pseudo-documentary and essayist cinema, Sophisticated Acquaintance tells the story of a tormented individual whose short life and long death were affected by a great many factors. Klaus Mann (John Gross), a present-day Philadelphia avatar of the real-life European author of Mephisto, lives in the shadow of his father, the eminent intellectual, novelist and Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann (Ernst Hohmann). When Klaus pens a controversial essay on "revolutionary suicide" and then acts on it, in protest of the world's selfishness, a group of his contemporaries speak up in filmed interviews about what led him down that path. It is a film about the creative process, the tragic depiction of a strained father-son relationship and, most of all, it is a film about individuality.

To prevent the loss of their baby, a young couple must navigate their way through an ancient curse placed on the husband's family.