Jan Fedder Movies
A low-budget restaurateur finds himself in a big vat of trouble in this comedy from director Fatih Akin. Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos) runs a cheap restaurant in a run-down warehouse distract that he calls the Soul Kitchen. While the food isn't very good, it doesn't cost much and a regular clientele shows up each evening for cheap beer, filling food, and the company of their peers. Bad luck follows Zinos like a shadow, and when his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), runs off to China, he decides to follow, putting his brother (Moritz Bleibtreu) in charge of the restaurant. However, his brother is a convicted criminal, and before long the city's underworld has taken over the place and tax collectors are threatening to shut them down. Zinos returns after Nadine pledges her heart to another, and discovers his diner is a shambles; hoping to put the Soul Kitchen back on its feet, Zinos hires a flashy gourmet chef (Birol Unel) to revamp the menu, but soon he's alienated his old customers while new ones haven't taken their place. Soul Kitchen received its North American premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, (more)
- 1993
This Austrian comedy features the lovely, zaftig actress Elfi Eschke. In the story, years ago, while attempting to photograph herself in the nude on a beach, a group of mischevious boys stole her clothes, her camera - everything. A pleasant man who turned out to be rich came to her rescue, and she eventually married him. It is now many years later, and he wants to run for public office. However, for his nudist wife the idea of hanging on his arm while campaigning for him sticks in her craw, and she decides to mount a protest by attempting to shock the staid middle-class folks of Austria with her nude body. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helmut Griem
- 1989
Not to be confused with the 1993 U.S. film with an identical title, this German romantic comedy, Singles, has a vaguely similar theme. This film follows the romantic travails of Mickey (Helmut Zierl) a hopelessly domestic young man whose life falls completely apart when his girlfriend Gilla Claudia Demarmels) kicks him out of the apartment they share because she is seeing another man. He finds a place to live, but feels utterly unable to cope on his own and lives on in the forlorn hope that his ex will compassionately move in with him so that he can somehow manage. When he confesses this to his best friend Archer (Leonard Lansink), along with supportive noises, he receives his friends complete puzzlement. When it becomes clear to him that Gilla won't rescue him, he tries to get involved in the scene at singles bars, hoping to pick someone, anyone, up, but he is ignored. He also tries to engage with others in a group therapy scene, but here, too, he is ignored or, worse, patronized. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Helmut Zierl, Leonard Lansink, (more)
- 1987
Notorious ex-Playboy centerfolds the Landers twins, Judy and Audry, headline this German tale of violence and soft-core porn as two nightclub-singing sisters who head out to get brutal revenge against the savage men who gang-raped them. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1984
Filmed with the eye of an ad man, the camera angles and approaches to scenes in this drama, as well as the lighting and color, reflect the preceding career of director Ulli Weiss in the advertising business. The story is straightforward and unexceptional, about two friends who have been living a fairly carefree existence. Harry (Heinze Honig) is now driving a cab at night because the woman he loved left him, and he has no desire to follow a traditional career. He sees his friend Pit (Jan Fedder) on a daily basis, and when they are not talking together or working, Pit is with his lover -- a rock and roll singer -- and Harry is chasing after women. Pit is a glass artist whose sculpture has not been selling at all recently, and to make matters worse, the woman he loves is now having an affair with someone else. Faced with the same crisis his friend had before him, Pit disappears from sight for awhile. When Harry catches up with him again, circumstances have changed. Harry has become seriously interested in an older, responsible woman and Pit has discovered the realities of manual labor (that pays). For all intents and purposes, it looks as though the carefree days are over for both friends. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Heinz Honig, Jan Fedder, (more)
Das Boot is one of the most gripping and authentic war movies ever made. Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, the film follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow) and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey. There's very little plot, so the movie's power comes from both its riveting, epic battle scenes and its details of the boring hours spent waiting for orders or signs of the enemy. With the exception of one staunch Hitler Youth lieutenant, none of the crew is particularly loyal to the Nazis, and some are openly hostile toward their Fuhrer; this allows viewer sympathy with the men as they perform their laborious, monotonous duties in cramped, filthy quarters, or await death as depth charges explode all around the sub. Prochnow is excellent as the nerves-of-steel commander, and many of the supporting actors -- all German -- are solid as well, although the characterizations border on war movie clichés (the young crewman who has left behind his pregnant girlfriend, the Chief Engineer whose wife is seriously ill). The real star, however, is cinematographer Jost Vacano, who makes the sub's grimy, claustrophobic interior come to vivid life, as his camera follows the crew through hatches, up ladders, into bunks, and under pipes, creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia while injecting it with movement. Originally edited by writer/director Wolfgang Petersen as both a two-and-a-half hour theatrical release and a six-hour German miniseries, Das Boot was re-released in a restored version in 1997 with nearly one hour of added footage which made it even more suspenseful than before. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, (more)
