Brigitte Janner Movies

Opening in remote Kurdistan, Eine Hand Voll Gras introduces us to the impoverished family of 10-year-old Kendal (Arman Inci). In desperate need for cash to fund his older sister's wedding, Kendal's parents allow themselves to be persuaded by Kendal's uncle (Ercan Durmaz), who lives in Germany, to let the boy go to Germany to make some money. Upon their arrival in Hamburg, the uncle is arrested and Kendal ends up in the temporary care of Hellkamp (Oliver Korittke), a cabby with a shady past. Hellkamp drops Kendal off in the Turkish quarter but eventually has pity on him and takes him to a neighbor's apartment. Soon, a group of Central Asian drug pushers come to co-opt the boy for their own purposes, and Kendal quickly becomes adept at dealing pills for them. Six months later, he meets Hellkamp again, and, after Hellkamp's past is revealed, the fates of the man and boy become inextricably bound up in one another. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

In this slow-paced, meditative drama, a middle-class eleven-year-old girl is spending the summer with her family on an estate in Latvia in 1905. There is no one there but her brothers for her to play with, and they are ignoring her. It looks like it might be a pretty dull summer. However, her father has noticed that something is missing from her stay there, and he gives her a camera to fool around with. As she progresses in her understanding of what it is capable of, she discovers one of the ruling passions of her life and is no longer bored. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Peter Kern, the director of this offbeat film, was one of the regular actors in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films, and it seems unlikely that reviewers will ever let him live that down. In this story, a shy, inhibited executive in a computer firm seeks his sexual release through the materials available to him in porn shops. He gets much more personally involved in life when he accidentally hits a crazed woman while driving his car. Basically uninjured, she becomes fixated on him, following him around and singing opera to him - at work, at home, and elsewhere. Otherwise she is mute. Needless to say, her attentions completely upset the orderly schedule of his life. Meanwhile, this otherwise timid man has undertaken to shelter an Asian prostitute from her abusive pimp. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This well-crafted, carefully-wrought film details the downward spiral of a loner named Paul (Peter Franke) who slowly succumbs to a worsening depression after his wife leaves him. Paul works part-time, goes to peep-shows, lives in a run-down room, and spends his time drinking beer in the bar at night. When he meets Lisa (Brigitte Janner) it almost looks as though he will pull himself up by the bootstraps -- until his aloof behavior does nothing to keep Lisa from going off with someone else. Paul reverts to his old ways, and even tries to rob one of the places where he used to work -- but fails. In the end, there seems to be no hope for his future. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this low-budget film ($5,000) by director and writer Klaus Mikoleit, an actress is looking for that elusive fantasy, a "good relationship" and to that end, she suffers through three failures: a macho-man with more brawn than brain, another with his own brand of sexual interests, and a third whose sense of humor is dominated by Mickey Mouse. The three men may have succeeded in curing her feelings of loneliness for some time to come. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Rull (Wolfgang Schneider) is in his last year at a classical German state school. Believing all authority figures are repugnant, he engages in a series of bizarre behaviors. He literally acts like a bull in a china shop, alienates his friends, loses his girlfriend and infuriates his teachers. When he paints a swastika on a wall of the Parliament building, he really gets in trouble. This film is based on the novel The Unadvised by Thomas Valentin. In the novel, the principle character was a hero, but he turns into an alienating buffoon in the celluloid version. Neither authority figures nor the counterculture is spared in this satire. Music is provided by Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide