Das Apfelbaumhaus (2004)

The Appletree House: This is the story of a large house in Leipzig. Before the war it was used as an atelier for the Zadikow family, who manufactured fur coats and gloves there. Then came the war and they were forced to sell to another Jewish family, the Scheindls. The Appletree House is now inhabited by a strange, bad tempered man, Danzig. He has a printing press in the basement and is on the verge of printing a new edition of Karl Marx's poems. In the other part of the house there is Karl, the masseur. They're daily lives are turned upside down when Jael Zadikow arrives from America. She has plans for the house, wanting to turn it into a large shopping center. Her only problem however is that she cannot track down Scheindl, who is still registered as the owner. Then Karl's mother turns up at the house, convinced she is about to die, and desperate to tell her son the secrets she has kept all these years. The Appletree House is a poetic and intelligent film which weaves together the lives of various characters, producing an unique insight into Jewish life in contemporary Germany, while also engaging with another highly sensitive issue, that of property rights and land.