A German mother lies to her son about where the Nazis are sending their Jewish neighbors. Good filmmakers don’t need a feature to make powerful movies. “Toyland” is a film that works so brilliantly that it managed to be powerful, thought-provoking and even gut-wrenching than most Hollywood films that are eight to ten times longer. With sparse dialogue, director Jochen Alexander Freydank keeps us hooked throughout this superb short film.

The death of a schoolteacher leads to a reunion between a handful of close friends in this drama from writer and director Barbara Albert. Five longtime friends return to the town where they grew up for the first time since they were teenagers in order to pay their respects to a teacher who had a major impact on their lives. However, fate has taken the five women in very different directions since they left school.

“Three women and four men: Everyone has a mobile phone, which makes a total of seven mobile phones. When the friends come together for dinner one evening, they suddenly come up with an idea. They play a game: Everyone puts their cell phone in the middle of the table and no matter who gets which pictures or messages sent, no matter how brief - everything has to be shared with the others. Telephone calls are only allowed via the loudspeaker. But what starts as an entertaining pastime, which should bring a little tension in the evening, soon leads to some embarrassing and tense situations full of surprises. And soon, not only the mood threatens to tilt, the long-standing relationships are at stake through the discovery of explosive lies and secrets at stake.”