Gudrun Okras
Dutch family-oriented filmmaker Ben Sombogaart directs De Tweeling (Twin Sisters), based on the best-selling novel by Tessa de Loo. Using black-and-white and color film stocks to establish the interwoven time periods, the story concerns twin sisters who grow up during WWII. In 1926, orphans Lotte and Anna are separated and forbidden to contact each other. Lotte is taken in by a wealthy Dutch couple to recover from tuberculosis and Anna is sent to work on a farm in Germany under the aegis of her uncle. Each woman becomes romantically involved with a different suitor; when the war breaks out, both sisters lose their men. The socioeconomic differences between their experiences drive them to opposite sides of the battlefront once war breaks out. Years later, they reencounter each other again and face the difficult prospect of a long-delayed reconciliation. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thekla Reuten, Nadja Uhl, (more)
- 1999
This German family film was based on a book by Erich Kaestner, whose work was previously adapted for the screen in the films Emil and the Detectives and The Parent Trap. Ten-year-old Annaluise (Elea Geissler), nicknamed "Puenktchen," is best friends with Anton (Max Felder) despite the difference in their backgrounds -- Annaluise's parents work in the medical field and are quite well-to-do, while Anton's father is missing and his mother Elli (Meret Becker) has health problems and can only work part-time at a local café. When Elli's doctor advises her to take a trip to the seashore that she cannot afford, Anton steals a gold cigarette lighter from Annaluise's folks, causing serious friction between his mother and her parents. Meanwhile, Anton "borrows" the café's delivery van to head to Berlin in search of his father, while Annaluise tries to make some extra money to help her friend by performing in the subway. The story also pauses occasionally for musical numbers and mild romantic interludes among the grown-up characters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elea Geissler, Max Felder, (more)
- 1998
- NR
What's so funny about a kidnapping? More than you might expect in Bis Zum Horizont Und Weiter/To The Horizon And Beyond, an offbeat comedy from Germany. When Katja (Nina Petri), a petty criminal with a record, is sentenced to another stretch behind bars, her boyfriend Henning (Wolfgang Stumph) decides something needs to be done, so he kidnaps Beate (Corinna Harfouch), the judge who handed down the sentence. Until a ransom can be arranged, Henning hides Beate at a ramshakle house on the outskirts of town where his mother Emmi (Gudrun Okras) lives. However, it turns out Katja has already escaped from custody and is planning on hiding out at Emmi's place; not only are the cops looking for her, but so is her lawyer. Before long, unexpected frendships and unusual alliances form between the assorted inhabitants of the little house as the authorites start to close in. Bis Zum Horizont Und Weiter/To The Horizon And Beyond was shown as part of the New German Films series at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wolfgang Stumph, Corinna Harfouch, (more)
- 1992
This German tragedy follows a father and son as they travel towards the father's former home. Kadir, an Algerian immigrant, has just been freed after spending two years in a Berlin mental hospital. Upon his release he learns that his ex-wife bore his son, Louis, not long after he left. She wants Kadir to have no contact with the boy. Kadir tries to create a new life in Germany but cannot handle the racism of his co-workers. He decides to return to Algiers, but before he goes, he kidnaps his son. The father and his tiny son suffer many events and meet many strange people along the way. Every new hurdle, evokes terrible memories in Kadir as he relives his father's abuse. The film's final tragedy is not difficult to predict. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In a compelling though uneven film, director Ralf Kirsten takes a dramatic look at a turning point in German history, 1932. In that year the German parliament fell under Nazi control, and democracy was effectively killed off. Clara Zetkin (Gudrun Okras) is the most senior member of parliament and as such will deliver the inaugural address to the new, Nazi-dominated Reichstag. The elderly communist Zetkin undergoes a dangerous journey from Moscow to Berlin as she prepares her final address. She hides in the home of a typesetter whose daughter, a nurse, is at first disengaged from the political scene. As circumstances worsen and their home is burned to the ground, as some of her friends leave for other countries and others are killed, the once passive nurse joins forces with her father to stay and fight the Nazis, and Zetkin gets ready to deliver her historic speech.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gudrun Okras, Rolf Ludwig, (more)
