The film interweaves three layers: the centre is Kleist's play "Penthesilea". Like from a distance Kleist observes the relationship beween man and woman, when he transfers into mythical Greece what in his time became a problem for him in Prussia - and remains to be a problem also for us. The director's associations during the work form the second layer. Reality and fantasy blend to an imaginary biography of Kleist, the third layer. At the end of the film Kleist is identical with his title character Penthesilesa. (www.filmgalerie451.de)

Adaptation of "Der Prinz von Homburg"; recorded at the Bavarian State Opera.

Deep in the Bavarian countryside Kleist’s historical drama Michael Kohlhaas is being shot. But instead of shooting a huge epic with impressive costumes and extraordinary props, grown-up men in suits fight with imaginary weapons. What has happened? Young director Lehman is fighting for his film, although all funds have been canceled. He’s convinced that the actor’s play and the fantasy of the audience will be sufficient. He fights for his vision as much as Kleist’s Kohlhaas fights for his rights. This film has to be finished. Whatever may come. Even if he has to go too far.

Edith Clever recites the complete text of The Marquise of O. by Heinrich von Kleist.

Heinrich wishes to conquer death through love, and when he meets Henriette, the wife of a business acquaintance, she expresses interest in a suicide pact when she learns she has a terminal illness.

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

On the day she learns of her pregnancy, a woman also finds out that her husband is sterile.

After being wrongfully denied justice, a horse trader seeks his own justice on a treacherous rancher.

The Prince of Homburg, disobeys orders and leads a cavalry charge in battle against the Swedes, which leads to victory. He is court martialled however for disobeying orders and sentenced to death. His love who is now to be betrothed to the King of Sweden, following his execution appeals to the Elector, her uncle, on his behalf, as do his comrades in battle. He must also contend with his own desire to live and conflicting sense of honour.

Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.

The film focuses on Kleist himself, torn-up, engulfed in the search for knowledge, for identity and trapped in his loneliness and self-centeredness, bouncing all over walls, grimaces, cruelty, suffering.

The aristocratic families of Rossitz and Warwand, who are relatives, have started to treat each other with mistrust and hatred, since a testamentary contract has stated, that the complete goods will be inherited to the respective surviving line. At the same time the young generation is in love, how can the tender ties between Agnes of Warwand and Ottokar of Rossitz be protected? Killed by their own fathers, they lie in their blood. A radical drama about the term "family". (www.filmgalerie451.de)

French film based on the story Der Findling by german author Heinrich von Kleist.

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

In the Middle Ages, the earl Wetter von Stahl is accused of having bewitched Catherine, the daughter of the blacksmith of Heilbronn. The earl tries to be exonerated by proceeding himself to the interrogation of the young woman, who apparently shows an "unnatural possession".

The life and struggles of the German writer Heinrich von Kleist.

A German Marquise has to deal with a pregnancy she cannot explain and an infatuated Russian Count.

Tutor Jeronimo and heiress Josephe fall in love but are quickly torn from one another by execution and jail. However, when fate intervenes in the form of a massive earthquake, the two lovers have no idea what is in store for them.

This surrealistic experimental film finds the son of a young nobleman staying with hash-smoking hippies in a seamy section of Munich. He falls for a hippie girl who is involved in shaking down the young man's parents for money.

It's medieval times. Kohlhaas merchants with horses. When going to the local fair to sell his horses, is forced by a noble to leave him part of the merchandise as payment for traveling through his land, promising to give it back when the fair is over. When he returns, the horses are almost dead, and the man refuse to respond, so Kohlhass begins to fight unsuccesfuly against the injustice.

A Saxon village in 1792: While the Prussians go against France, the haymaking takes place in the village and the resolute Marthe catches her daughter Ev with the village blacksmith Ruprecht in the hay.

The man who broke the jug, the judge, is trying a case who determine who broke the jug. Long before the evidence becomes conclusive against the suspects, it becomes apparent that the blustering and bullying - and naive - village judge is the guilty one.