André Hennicke

Theo (Jürgen Vogel) has raped several women and is, after several years of committing acts of sexual violence, caught. He is committed to a psychiatric prison and, after 12 years in prison, he is released to return to normal life. Theo finds work as a printer, goes regularly to therapy, and lives in a supervised group. But Theo finds that finding a normal life isn't all that easy. Functioning more like a wooden puppet than a person, Theo wanders through his post-prison days more like an inhibited loner with severe difficulties in his social encounters with women. In spite of overwhelming loneliness and growing depression, Theo fights returning to his old violent ways. And then a ray of hope enters Theo's life: he gets to know Netti (Sabine Timoteo), the daughter of the domineering printing house owner. Netti mistrusts men in the same way that Theo mistrusts women. The two outsiders befriend each other and eventually fall in love. But Nettie knows nothing about Theo's past and his problems -- until one night when Theo decides that he can't keep living a lie. Der Freie Wille tells the story of a man who is given freedom but still remains a prisoner inside. ~ Heidi Philipsen, All Movie Guide

Portuguese director Hugo Vieira da Silva's feature Body Rice joins Gus Van Sant's Gerry, Jose Maria de Orbe's The Straight Line, and other recent motion pictures that pontificate at length on the endless vapidity inherent in banal lives. Vieira da Silva chooses as his subject a cadre of German teenagers shuttled off to a social reintegration program in Portugal, where they wander endlessly through the countryside searching, in vain, for personal significance. Sylta Fee Wegmann, Julika Jenkins, and Alice Dwyer co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

When a notorious German serial killer is captured after committing some of the most heinous acts against humanity ever imaginable, a farmer and police officer from a sleepy rural community on the outskirts of Berlin is drawn into the case as he searches for the answers to a murder that has shaken his tight-knit community in director Christian Alvart's tense psychological nightmare. Gabriel Engel (André Hennicke) is the most depraved kind of predator imaginable. In his brutal and bloody killing spree, Engel has preyed on not only adults, but defenseless young children as well. Now Engel has been captured by the authorities, and the shaken citizens can all breathe a little bit easier. All except for Michael Martens (Wotan Wilke Moehring), that is. It's been a year since young Lucia Flieder was found viciously slain, and the citizens of the community that Martens presides over are growing impatient as they await the capture of her killer. Engel has admitted to 14 murders, but he has staunchly denied any connection to the Flieder case. Nevertheless, he claims to know the identity of the killer. Before he entrusts Martens with the sensitive information, Engel demands that Martens allow him to engage in a total psychological evaluation of his interrogator. With a convicted maniac gradually working his way deep into Martens' fragile psyche, an urban police force who derides the rural lawman as an ineffective incompetent, and a family life that is slowly coming unraveled, the once determined police officer slowly feels himself succumbing to the madness that encircles him with each step closer he gets to realizing the true identity of Flieder's killer. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

The true story of a German soldier's long and difficult journey home after being sentenced to a Russian prison camp inspired this wartime epic. In 1944, Clemens Forell (Bernhard Bettermann) leaves behind his wife and children and joins the German army, where he is sent to fight along the Russian front. After a year in the trenches, Forell is captured by Soviet forces and is sentenced to spend 25 years at hard labor, mining lead. Predictably enough, the mine proves to be a dangerous and dispiriting environment, and after three years Forell decides he can stand no more and blocks out an escape plan. Forell makes his break during the dead of winter, and while he's at first discovered by a group of hunters who intend to turn him back in, a band of Eskimos come to his rescue. Forell throws in his lot with them, eventually falling in love with the lovely granddaughter (Irina Pantayeva) of the Eskimo chieftain. After a few seasons with the Eskimos, Forell resumes his journey back home, narrowly escaping capture in Siberia and finding an unexpected ally as he tries to cross into Iran. So Weit Die Fuesse Tragen was adapted from a best-selling German novel based on an actual incident; the novel was also the basis for a popular German television series of the late '50s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Thosten Schmidt directs this over-the-top Teutonic spectacular consisting of pregnant Russians, bales of cocaine and a drunken bear. Right before the big millennial new year, hefty loser Toto (Jurgen Tarrach) gets released from the joint after a three year stint for drug possession. He simply wants to get his life in order and start working in his old job as a Berlin bus driver. His recently released cellmate Frank (Dieter Landuris), however, is looking for one last score -- toting a wad of blow for hot-head drug lord Henry (Andre Hennicke) -- so he and his girlfriend Nora (Nadja Uhl) can live the big life. Little does Frank know, but a crippled DJ named Commander Zippo (Hannes Jaencike) is actively wooing Nora on his radio show and voyeuristically spying on her from a secret window in his apartment. Meanwhile, a pregnant, desperately poor Russian woman, Natalia (Tamara Simunovic), throws herself in front of Toto's bus. In his attempt to avoiding flattening her, he manages to kill Henry's drug courier (Royal Atakpa). With an injured though beautiful woman, a corpse, and ten kilos of snow on his bus, he gets talked into holding the stash for ransom by Natalia, who hopes to earn enough to bankroll her child's life. Somewhere in all this wackiness, a black bear gets released from the zoo by an animal rights activist, gets drunk, boards the bus and causes one of those impressive movie accidents where no one gets hurt. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

This German drama begins on a Greek island where Maria (Vicky Volioti) runs a family restaurant. When her father dies suddenly, relatives ask why Maria's older sister Helena (Jasmin Tabatabai) didn't attend the funeral. To find her, Maria travels to Berlin, where she discovers that Helena is not a successful dancer but is a croupier in a seedy club. Maria moves into Helena's apartment, visits the club, and meets Roberto (Frank Stierens), who soon becomes her regular backgammon opponent at an adjacent restaurant. However, the shaky sibling relationship soon begins to collapse. With German and Greek dialogue, this film was shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival and the Thessaloniki Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide