A video game takes some entertaining and philosophical wrong turns: the tennis player figure slides from the centre court into a parallel world and is robbed of his racket. The quirky “Pong” setting gradually evolves into the course of a desperate search for identity outside the rules of the game. The pathetic polygonal Roger Federer stumbles over glitches. Rowdy supporting characters offer first harassment, then help. The design, this undead relic from the past of games, is a subversive fellow player.

Inside a barn the camera catches the daylight filtering into the fragile building through the irregular gaps and crevices in its wooden skin. It chases them with whip pans or ambushes the slowly creeping sunlight with time-lapse shots. The flashing, blazing rays seem like the heartbeat of this chamber of light. There is no outside view.

We celebrate the Sandman’s 65th anniversary! To mark the occasion, a brand-new episode is released in which little Sandman travels the country in his multi-mobile. But there is a mishap when he gets out: The bag of dream sand gets torn and the sand trickles out. The way to the dream sand mill is not easy to find. Quite a number of stages must be negotiated to reach the destination.

A huge, cheeky rat has moved in with the little man. It whistles to the music from the radio, helps itself from the fridge without asking, splashes in the bathtub and is simply everywhere – loud, annoying, just too much. When it suddenly disappears, the little man realises that the apartment has never been so quiet – and so empty. A heart-warming adaptation of Nadia Budde’s eponymous picture book.

A handful of quarrymen in the Reinhardtsdorf open cast mine near Bad Schandau dig out the coveted Elbe natural stone. Gabriele Denecke’s approach to the men, who are of different ages, is almost trance-like, the movement to and from the stones marks the transition to another world. We hear about the merciless working conditions of the past, about alcohol, people worn out before their time. Today, digging out the massive rocks in the midst of nature also constitutes a degree of freedom. Open cast miners share a special mindset. And: Once you’ve worn out your first pair of wooden shoes, you’ll stay – probably forever.