Dana Vávrová Movies

Stalingrad director Joseph Vilsmaier teams with his wife, director and actress Dana Vávrová, for this harrowing look at the journey of three Berlin Jews to the dreaded Auschwitz Concentration Camp at the height of World War II. In 1942, Joseph Goebbles' herded scores of Berlin Jews into the Grunewald Railway Station in Berlin under the pretext of protecting them from air raids. Entire families were crammed into overcrowded freight trucks without food or drink and forced to endure a journey of several days as unsympathetic guards loomed ominously nearby with guns at the ready. It was during this time that many of those unfortunate souls surely began to realize that this voyage was only the beginning of their woes: Passengers such as famous pugilist Henry Neumann, singer Jakob Noschik, and frightened teenager Ruth Zilbermann. Now, as they roll ever closer to their grim destiny at Auschwitz, the only question that remains is who will survive this dreadful ordeal? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Actress Dana Vavrova directed this German drama about a woman suffering from an eating disorder. Attractive Laura (Catherine Flemming) lives alone and holds down a Munich marketing job, stressful enough to trigger bulimic binges. When Laura gets a new boyfriend, Simon (Kai Wiesinger), she lives in fear that her secret will be discovered. This film is produced by director Joseph Vilsmaier, who is Dana Vavrova's husband. Shown at 1998 film fests (Berlin, Karlovy Vary). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This German battlefield drama, released on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the climactic 1943 defeat of the Nazi forces at Stalingrad in Russia, does not paint a pretty picture either of war itself or of the Germans fighting in that war. Out of hundreds of thousands of previously victorious German soldiers who took part in this most crucial battle of WWII, a mere six thousand ruined men survived. Today, the word "Stalingrad" is used by Germans to signify any particularly ruinous reversal or defeat. In the story, the lives of several German soldiers are followed as they are transformed from arrogant and victorious killers into demoralized cowards who will do anything at all in order to survive, usually without success. Due to a political climate of resurgent sympathy for the fascists at the time this film was made, is was particularly important to the filmmakers to show the soldiers as lacking any shred of military dignity or real courage. Thus, though this big budget, well-made film did well in Germany, its lack of any truly sympathetic characters made it less popular elsewhere. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In 1984, Anna Wimschneider, a woman who had been a farmgirl in Bavaria during World War Two published an autobiography which focused on her life during that period, and it became a huge bestseller. Her story, Herbstmilch, is brought to the screen by her fellow Bavarian, director Joseph Vilsmaier. At the beginning of the story, Anna (Dana Vavrova) is the oldest daughter of a widowed farmer, and toils ceaselessly looking after her father and her many younger brothers. She abandons her dream of becoming a nurse when she falls in love with and marries her neighbor, Albert (Werner Stucker), who is also a farmer. Before she can get too used to things, her new husband is drafted, and she is left as the only completely able-bodied person on the farm, and must support not only her hostile mother-in-law, but a whole host of new aunts and uncles. Enduring even more incredible and backbreaking labor on this primitive farm than on her father's farm, and pregnant, somehow she survives. Both Anna and her beloved Albert appear in significant cameos in this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

While cavorting around in the ruins of a castle in Prague, a trespassing gang of boys encounter a ghost from the days of knighthood. Naturally enough, they are scared by him. However, when the ghost is caught in a trap set by some other interlopers, they rescue him, and they become allies in a fight to prevent the glorious ruins from being turned into a mushroom farm by the city authorities. Thanks to the involvement of the knight, forest elves are brought in to help their cause. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide