German films have thrice
taken home the Academy
Award for Best Foreign
Language Film:
Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin
Drum (1979), Caroline Link's
Nowhere in Afrika (2002),
and most recently Fatih
Akin's Gegen die Wand (2004).

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German Film (2)
BROWSE GERMAN FILMS: Contemporary
German films 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 - 6
- 7 | New
releases | East German films
German film classics & collections
1 - 2
| German directors &actors
| Documentaries | German
movie soundtracks
The Women of Rosenstrasse
/ Rosenstraße |


|
Drama / War (2003)
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader, Martin Fiefel
|
SYNOPSIS: German
filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta directs the war drama Rosenstrasse,
based on the plight of "mixed marriages" between Jewish
men and non-Jewish women during the Holocaust. In contemporary
New York, Jewish matriarch Ruth (Jutta Lampe) practices Orthodox
mourning traditions for her late husband, to the dismay of her
daughter Hannah (Maria Schrader). At the wake, Ruth's cousin Rachel
(Carola Regnier) tells Hannah some family secrets that send curious
Hannah over to Berlin. She searches out 90-year-old Lena Fischer
(Doris Schade), who cared for Ruth during WWII. Flashbacks recall
the events of 1943,when Jewish husbands were rounded up and kept
in a house on a street called Rosenstrasse.
Lena (played by Katja Riemann as a young woman) joins a group
of other wives for a week-long protest, where she meets an abandoned
seven-year-old named Ruth (played by Svea Lohde as a girl). Rosenstrasse
was shown in competition at the 2003 Venice International Film
Festival.
Review by Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
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|
Good-bye Lenin! |
|
Comedy (2003)
Director: Wolfgang Becker
Starring: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß
|
REVIEW: Contemporary comedies rarely
stretch themselves beyond a bickering romantic couple or a bickering
couple and a bucket of bodily fluids, which makes the ambition
and intelligence of Good
bye, Lenin! not simply entertaining but downright refreshing.
The movie starts in East Germany before the fall of communism;
our hero, Alex (Daniel Brühl), describes how his mother
(Katrin Sass), a true believer in the communist cause, has a
heart attack when she sees him being clubbed by police at a
protest. She falls into a coma for eight months--during which
the Berlin Wall comes down. When she awakens, her fragile health
must avoid any shocks, so Alex creates an illusive reality around
his bedridden mother to convince her that communism is still
alive. Good
bye, Lenin! delicately balances wry satire with its
rich investment in the lives of Alex, his mother, and other
characters around them. Funny, moving, and highly recommended.
Review by Bret Fetzer
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|
Gun-Shy / Schussangst |
 |
Crime / Drama (2003)
Director: Ditto Tsintsadze
Starring: Fabian Hinrichs, Fabian Hinrichs |
DESCRIPTION: A major
hit on the European film festival circuit, Ditto Tsintsadze's
"poetic thriller" will keep you on the edge from the
startling beginning to the jaw-dropping final shot. A young man
sits alone on a bus. A beautiful young woman drops a note in his
lap as she walks by. It says simply, "help me." But
what help could she, a self-assured martial arts student, ever
need? And how could he, a gentle pacifist who delivers meals to
the elderly, ever help her? Yet as our hero follows after her,
his bizarre journey begins. Does he become a rescuing knight falling
in love? Or a psychotic killer descending into madness? And is
there even a difference?
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|
The Princess and the
Warrior / Der Krieger und die Kaiserin |

|
Drama / Romance (2002)
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann |
REVIEW: In this follow-up to
his first international hit, Run
Lola Run, writer/director Tom Tykwer spins an offbeat
love story between a disturbed army vet named Bodo Benno Fürmann
and an equally unbalanced asylum nurse, Sissi (Lola's Franka
Potente). Compared to its highly stylized predecessor, this film
is timid, which is probably why it proved such a disappointment
on the international festival circuit. But it still has much to
recommend it as a worthy addition to a growing canon of works
by Germany's hottest young auteur. Shot in Tykwer's native Wuppertal
-- a misty city in the Ruhr valley known for its peculiar "hanging
trains" -- the setting lends itself well to the telling of
a romance that is both moody and absurd. Maintaining a balance
between those two elements is Tykwer's goal throughout. When he
succeeds, the results are surprisingly poignant -- like the unforgettable
scene in which Sissi becomes enamored of Bodo while he administers
a tracheotomy. But there are elements handled with less dexterity
that come off as misplaced humor, such as the backstory dealing
with the death of Bodo's girlfriend, who was killed in a gas station
explosion. Despite the art-house flourishes, Tykwer keeps the
film together as a cohesive tale of love and loss, of trauma and
healing. More importantly, as the title suggests, he even manages
to make something new of the classic fairy tale romance.
Review by Connor McMadden, All Movie Guide
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|
Big Girls Don't Cry /
Große Mädchen weinen nicht |

|
Drama (2002)
Director: Maria von Heland
Starring: Anna Maria Mühe Karoline Herfurth |
SYNOPSIS: Kati and
Steffi are best friends since childhood. But as they step into
adulthood, both their perfect friendship and their personalities
get harshly tested by a series of unfortunate events; mainly caused
by Steffi finding out her father wasn't quite faithful to her
mother, and the two girls getting hit by the consequences of her
delirious revenge plans. When things get out of hand, the two
girls find themselves in the middle of a mess, and Kati starts
questioning whether or not Steffi is really so precious to her.
Where will Steffi's plans of penalizing her father's "evil"
lover will end up..? Will the girls' friendship be saved..?
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|
The Tunnel / Der Tunnel |

|
Drama / Mystery (2001)
Director: Roland Suso Richter
Starring: Heino Ferch, Nicolette Krebitz, Sebastian Koch
New US Release
October 2005 |
SYNOPSIS: Based on
a true story a group of East Berliners escaping to the West. Harry
Melchior was a champion East German swimmer at odds with the system
under which he has already been imprisoned. On his own escape,
he is determined the arrange the escape to the West of his sister
and her family. The idea of the tunnel is born, but the project
does not run smoothly. The participants struggle not only with
the massive logistics of their task, but betrayal from friends
in the East. And always the East German police are close to discovering
the plot.
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|
Advertising Rules /
Viktor Vogel - Commercial Man |

|
Comedy (2001)
Director: Lars Kraume
Starring: Alexander Scheer, Götz George, Chulpan Khamatova,
Maria Schrader
|
SYNOPSIS: Edward
Kaminsky, an aging ad man, wants a golden parachute from his agency;
he must first land the Opel auto contract. Rosa, a youth with
wealthy parents, wants to establish herself as an artist. The
clumsy and enthusiastic Viktor, not quite honest, wants work.
When he wanders into Kaminsky's meeting with Opel and says something
about irony, the Opel director wants him in on the campaign. Then
he steals an idea from Rosa that the Opel director loves. Before
Rosa discovers he's expropriated her idea, Rosa and Viktor become
lovers. Father-son feelings materialize between Kaminsky and Viktor.
Can the impulsive Viktor hold it together before Rosa learns the
truth and flies away?
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|
What To Do In Case of Fire
/ Was tun, wenn's brennt? |

|
Comedy (2001)
Director: Gregor Schnitzler
Starring: Til Schweiger, Martin Feifel
|
REVIEW: A heavy-handed but engrossing
German drama about a group of ex-radicals who try to escape the
ever-closer clutches of the police after a 15-year-old bomb they
planted accidentally goes off, What
to Do in Case of Fire paints a questionably sympathetic
portrait of people trying to erase their pasts. Occasionally the
humor found in the group's difficulty grasping the changes the
years have wrought erases the distasteful attempt to whitewash
these anarchists' violent past. Still, it's a copout to pretend
that these particular radicals never seemed to have hurt anyone
seriously, and indeed, even the exploded bomb only slightly injures
two innocent bystanders. It's up to the considerable efforts of
a most capable cast--including Til Schweiger (Tim) and Nadja Uhl
(Nele)--to draw us into their morally skewered story.
Review by Kevin Filipski
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|
Nowhere in Africa / Nirgendwo
in Afrika |


|
Drama (2001)
Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Juliane Köhler, Merab Ninidze |
REVIEW: Both epic and heartbreakingly
intimate,
Nowhere in Africa begins with a Jewish woman named
Jettel Redlich fleeing Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina,
to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel
refuses to adjust to her new circumstances (she brought with her
a set of china dishes and an evening gown), while Regina adapts
readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's
cook, an African named Owuor. But this is only the beginning of
a series of uprootings, and as the surface of their lives is torn
away, Walter and Jettel find they have little in common, and must--under
tumultuous circumstances--build their marriage anew. With incredible
skill and passion, Nowhere
in Africa manages to bring you fully into every change
in this family's life; it richly deserves the Academy Award®
it received in 2002. A powerful, deeply moving film.
Review by Bret Fetzer
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|
Mostly Martha / Bella Martha
|

|
Romantic comedy (2001)
Director: Sandra Nettlebeck
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Maxime Foerste |
REVIEW: Mostly
Martha is a rich addition to the recent banquet of movies
about food. Martha (Martina Gedeck), the domineering chef at a
fancy restaurant, has her rigid routine broken when her sister
dies in a car wreck, leaving behind her 9-year-old daughter Lina
(Maxime Foerste). Martha takes the girl in, but has no gift for
maternal expression; she offers Lina food, but Lina refuses to
eat. Meanwhile, her control over her kitchen is threatened when
her boss hires a buoyant Italian named Mario (Sergio Castellitto)
to assist, and Martha finds herself flailing in an effort to reestablish
control of her life. While Mostly
Martha may not hold many surprises, the writing, direction,
and particularly the acting are as sumptuous and sensual as the
cooking and eating. The relationship between Martha and Lina is
portrayed with all its awkwardness and complications intact; the
result is wonderfully affecting.
Review by Bret Fetzer
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|
BROWSE GERMAN FILMS: Contemporary
German films 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 - 6
- 7 | New
releases | East German films
German film classics & collections
1 - 2
| German directors &actors
| Documentaries | German
movie soundtracks
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