Vladimir Weigl Movies
- 2001
This comedy from Germany follows the misadventures of three senior citizens with an unusual plan to finance one last spree. Carla (Christel Okras), Beta (Christel Peters), and Lilli (Elisabeth Scherer) are three elderly women who have known each other since childhood and remain the best of friends. While their golden years have not been especially kind to them -- Lilly feels cramped living with her family, Beta shares a house with her ungrateful son who demands she pay part of the rent, and Carla is stuck in an old-age home -- the three women have been saving their money and plan to take a cruise around the world together. They've nearly reached their goal when they decide that hiding the money at home isn't safe, so they go to a bank to deposit their eight thousand marks in their bank accounts. While the three women wait in line to see the teller, a team of robbers stage a heist at the bank, taking their savings along with the funds from the bank vault. The bank's manager informs the women that since the money had not been officially deposited before it was stolen, it's not covered under the bank's insurance; outraged, and aware that they might not live long enough to save another eight thousand, the ladies decide to stage a robbery of their own to recover their savings and get revenge against the bankers. Jetzt Oder Nie: Zeit Ist Geldz received its North American premiere at the 2001 Palm Springs Film Festival; the film was shown under its English title, Now or Never. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Scherrer
- 2001
The impact of technology in our lives -- and how it can draw people apart as easily as it brings them together -- provides the subtext for this drama from German writer/director Rudolph Thome. Venus Siebenberg (Sabine Bach) is a well-known novelist who has made an unusual agreement with her publisher Hans Neumann (Vladimir Weigl): Venus will have a webcam installed in her study so her fans can watch as she works on her latest book. Unbeknownst to Venus or her husband Max (Roger Tebb), computer expert Herbert (Rolf-Peter Kahl) has also placed hidden cameras in several other parts of their home so that their lives can be followed 24 hours a day. Venus flirts with film producer Bernhard (Andre Meyer), and later edges into an affair with Fabrizio (Guntram Brattia), while Neuman's teenage daughter Isabelle (Kathleen Feidler) uses a webcam of her own to send a private strip-tease show to Venus' son Thorsten (Markus Perschmann), leading him to ask for a camera of his own in order to return the favor. After Bernhard and Hans have an argument regarding film rights to the book, a drunken Bernhard ends up in Venus' bed, where she lets him sleep off his bender but doesn't touch him. When Thorsten sees the webcam broadcast of Bernhard sleeping with his mother the next morning, he immediately tells Max, who refuses to believe that her relationship with the producer is merely platonic. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sabine Bach, Vladimir Weigl, (more)
- 1986
This drama comes from one of Germany's greatest contemporary directors, Peter Lilienthal; and is one of the few to be released outside of the country. It is the story of an Israeli poet's struggle to create in an inhospitable environment. The poet is suffering from severe writer's block and much of the film centers upon the reasons why. Among those reasons is a brother blinded during the Yom Kippur War, the drawn out illness and subsequent death of his wife, and the simpleton son she bore before she became ill. Most of the time the poet blames his son for his inability to write; the father resents having to care for him night and day but he refuses to institutionalize the lad. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jakov Lind, Len Ramras, (more)
