The mis-adventures of three Polish-Jews on the road to Gdansk is the basis for this German comedy that was filmed in New York, Germany, and Poland. Genovefa and Moshe have been married and living in New York for 30 years. Physically the couple resembles Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat. The two have decided to return to Poland for a visit. They intend to have Moshe's best friend Isaac, an unlucky, depressive German, take care of their house while they are gone. Unfortunately, Isaac loses his job before they go and ends up accompanying them on a Polish freighter. When the ship dies in a German port, the threesome must go overland to Gdansk. They encounter many mishaps along the way.

This film combines two very different styles: an atmospheric psycho thriller about the ice-cold hired gun (masterfully played by Frank Gorschin), and the bizarre satire of the Austrian TV serial "Kottan ermittelt".

The story and fate of three families: A Jewish family destroyed by the massacres of the Nazis in Lithuania; the family of the culprit, who flew to America and keeps grotesque family cohesion; the family of Ratz, a social democratic family, dissolving itself miserably in today's Vienna. The condemnation of the last century bundled in these three families showing clearly that one could never escape from its own past. Written by themoth-1

Shameless slimeball Eduard "Edik" Letov - clad in an everpresent Hawaiian shirt - puts the sting on alien travelers hoping to connect with their roots, by having local phonies pose as the visitors' long-lost relatives. Complications abound when Letov attempts to pass off an entire village under the guise of a community wiped out during the Second World War. The arrival of a group of trouble-causing misfits, among them mobster Barukh - who wishes to bury his mother's remains, only to discover that someone keeps exhuming them - and the lech Simon - a Canadian with an insatiable fetish for his sexy translator - turn Letov's latest scheme into a veritable cat's cradle.

The enigmatic but vivid imagery of this loosely plotted film is based on a similarly evocative novel by the Italian author Antonio Tabucchi, Noturno Indiano. An old friend of the hero's has been living in Bombay with a prostitute. His friend Peter Schlemihl (Otto Tausig) is a concentration camp survivor, who went to India after being captivated by a photograph he saw there. When the prostitute writes to him in Europe asking that he rescue his friend from a mysterious malaise, he flies into India to try and help. When he gets to Bombay, he discovers that his friend has disappeared. Following the clues left behind by the friend, and based on his acquaintance with him, he journeys to Madras to speak to a Theosophist dignitary there, and then journeys on to Portugues Goa. With each step of his journey, the hero (Jean-Hugues Anglade) becomes more identified with his friend, and re-enacts in his own person the transformations he must have experienced.

1998 French film by Nicole Garcia