Vadim Glowna Movies

An embittered, 80-year-old piano teacher working in a women's prison takes on the most challenging student in her enduring career in director Chris Kraus' low-key musical drama. For years, Miss Krueger (Monica Bleibtreu) has been teaching classical piano to some of the most hardened female prisoners in all of Germany, but upon meeting brooding new inmate Jenny (Hannah Herzsprung), Miss Krueger finally seems to have found the one student she can't break through to -- until she hears Jenny play, that is. A former piano prodigy whose abusive childhood prompted her to neglect her natural gift for music in the name of survival, Jenny is a violent offender whose notorious temper has, as an adult, repeatedly landed her behind bars. Though she does still display considerable talent on the ivory, her decidedly antisocial behavior compelled the troubled prisoner to repeatedly sabotage opportunities to take part in recitals that would, at the very least, provide a momentary respite from her grim day-to-day existence. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Oskar Roehler's drama Der Alte Affe Angst (Angst) is about the dissolution of a couple. Robert (Andre Hennicke) and Marie (Marie Baumer) have little in common other than their sex life. Since Robert is going through a bout with impotency, they are having a very rocky time. Robert learns that his father, whom he is estranged from, has died. This disturbs Robert so much that he visits a prostitute, and is able to engage in sex with her. Marie discovers the infidelity, and the prostitute has a surprise of her own. Angst was screened at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Directed by Christopher Roth, this biopic chronicles the rise of '70s West German terrorist Andreas Baader from his beginnings as a small-time car thief to his stint as the leader of the Marxist revolutionary Red Army Faction. Baader opens in 1972, as an unexpected traffic stop signifies the end of the radical's (Frank Giering) efforts to return to a socialist society. A flashback brings the audience back to 1967, when Baader (Giering) helped firebomb a Frankfurt department store and fled to Paris. Though captured by local authorities, he managed to escape from a German prison with the help of fellow activist Ulrike Meinhof (Birge Schade). Following training at a terrorist camp in Jordan, Baader and his gang proceeded to initiate a slew of violent activity; bombings ensued in various newspaper buildings, American military bases, and German police stations at a disturbingly high rate between the summer of 1970 and their disbanding in mid '72. Baader also features Vadim Glowna, Laura Tonke, Birge Schade, Jana Pallaske, Michael Sideris, and Sebastian Weberstein. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

Adapted from the novel of celebrated German writer Ingrid Noll, Kalt ist der Abendhauch bounces back and forth over a span of 50 years to tell the darkly comic tale of a destructive love affair between two people. When the film opens, octogenarian Charlotte (Gisela Trowe) has just received a letter from Hugo (Heinz Bennent), an old friend who is coming for a visit. The news of Hugo's impending arrival takes Charlotte back to the year 1936, when she was 16. One of four children born to middle-class parents, young Charlotte (Fritzi Haberlandt) carries a torch for handsome stud Hugo (August Diehl), and is understandably put out when he marries her older sister Ida (Georgia Stahl). An even deeper pall is cast over the couple's union when Charlotte's brother shows up at the wedding dinner wearing a dress, then proceeds to hang himself in the attic. A few years later, Charlotte enters into an unsatisfying marriage with Bernhard (Andre Hennicke), a dull schoolteacher with whom she has two children. Bernhard disappears during the course of World War II and is presumed dead, making it easy for Charlotte to consummate her long-simmering lust with Hugo when he drops by one day after the war. However, on a proverbial dark and stormy night, Bernhard reappears at Charlotte's doorstep, wet, unkempt, and hungry for sex. Hugo's arrival fifty years later exposes -- literally -- five decades of family secrets and dysfunction, thanks in part to the gruesome discovery of a body buried in the cellar. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Oskar Roehler directs this bleak look at a down-and-out writer's alcohol-drenched final days. Though the central character is named Hanna Flander, the film basically tells the real-life story of noted author Gisela Elsner, who threw herself out of a fourth story window in 1992. Elsner is also the filmmaker's mother. Given the film's highly personal subject matter, Roehler lends the film a remarkable emotional remoteness along with a breathtaking visual style, shot in stark black and white. It opens with unrepentant Leninist Hanna (Hannelore Elsner, no relation) drunken, depressed, and chain-smoking as she watches the Berlin Wall collapse while in her Munich abode. She sells most of her belongings and moves to Berlin, hooking up with old flame Jaochim Rau (Michael Gwisdek) in the process. She suffers one setback after another, ultimately ending up in a scuzzy tenement in East Berlin, which she gives to a kind Eastern German woman (Claudia Geisler). A long admirer of Communism and East Germany, she has difficult time believing the realities of that repressive police state. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Protected from the intrigues of con-men by the overwhelming blanket of the former regime in East Germany, at first it seems that Ada Fenske, the elderly widow living on a farm near a soon-to-be abandoned Russian island military base is fair game. The (West) German military intelligence services want to acquire her farm. At first, their agent attempts to buy the property openly, but her refusal to sell motivates him to try far shadier techniques. He comes up with a relative she never knew about who is entitled to a share in the property and tries to blackmail the township's mayor to get his cooperation. However, the hard-working and honest old lady has an ally in the person of her more sophisticated border, a woman who works in the mayor's office and has been to the West. She takes great delight in foiling the underhanded agent. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Actor Klaus Maria Brandauer makes his directorial debut with The Seven Minutes (released in Germany as Georg Elser-Einer aus Deutschland. Brandauer also stars, playing a solid citizen of 1939 Berlin. Though loyal to the Fatherland, he despises Hitler and the Nazis. A few weeks after the start of World War II, Elser (Brandauer) begins cooking up a scheme to assassinate Der Fuehrer at a reunion for the participants of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. All he needs is seven minutes. All he doesn't need is the unwitting intrusiveness of innocent barmaid Anneliese (Rebecca Miller, daughter of playwright Arthur Miller). Even though we know the outcome, Brandauer sustains an incredible amount of tension. The film isn't quite in the league of Day of the Jackal, but it's not too far from it. The Seven Minutes was adapted by Stephen Sheppard from his own novel The Artisan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Polish political melodrama examines the days leading up to the German invasion of Poland and centers upon two newlyweds. The husband is Uruguayan and comes from German-English parents. The woman is British. They have come to Poland to do some family business and end up visiting a good friend's country estate. There the woman is thrown from a horse and is critically wounded. Though her body heals, her mind is damaged. Her husband's cruelty toward her makes matters worse. The husband then learns that his factory is working with Germany as it plans a Polish invasion. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Escher (Jurgen Prochnow) wanders through the South Sea islands after his partner Quinn (Tony Doyle) is murdered in this drama taken from a novel by Joseph Conrad. When he checks into the Grand Pacific Hotel, Escher encounters a variety of memorable guests. Included are the perverted Mr. Jones (Sam Waterston), the sinister innkeeper Schomberg (Mario Adorf), and Julie (Suzanna Hamilton), a saxophone player in an all-female band. Escher helps Julie escape from the lecherous intentions of the philandering Schomberg. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Already a popular serial in a magazine, a widely-read book, and a drama adapted for both the stage and radio, this story about two school friends running away from their dreams is now brought to the screen by Peter Beauvais. As two men reach adulthood, Helmut (Vadim Glowna) eventually works his way up to becoming a school principal and just wants to spend his available leisure time immersed in reading, even at the expanse of his sexual life. Klaus (Dietmar Mues) goes into journalism and his sexual life is anything but ignored; he is on his second marriage and wears his prowess like a badge of honor. Whenever the two men meet, they go around and around in an endless duel of one-upmanship, lying through their teeth about their accomplishments. This friction gets stronger and stronger until a spark ignites action in the worst possible way. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this made-for-television courtroom drama, a modern Bluebeard with multiple lovers has been charged with the murder of one of them, a prostitute. He pleads not guilty, and then one witness after the other gives so much evidence out of sequence that it is a probable cause for swearing off jury duty for the rest of one's life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi