Anica Dobra Movies

A woman flirting with the wrong side of the law finds romance along the way in this drama from first-time director Stefan Arsenijevic. Anica (Anica Dobra) is a woman in her early thirties who for several years has been involved with Milutin (Fedja Stojanovic), a second-string mob boss. However, Milutin also has a wife and a disturbed daughter, and Anica has come to realize he has only so much room for her in his life. Anica wants to move away and start life over, but she needs money to do that, and she plans on robbing the safe where Milutin keeps much of his loot. Stanislav (Vuk Kostic), one of Milutin's lieutenants, has gotten wind of Anica's plans and wants to spare his boss any additional annoyance as they try to prevent a skirmish with rival gangster Radovan (Josef Tatic) into exploding into a full-blown war. Hoping to keep Anica from moving away, Stanislav hopes to change her mind by sharing a secret with her -- that he's fallen in love with her. Liebe und Andere (aka Love and Other Crimes) was an official entry at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Noted German filmmaker Doris Dorrie directs this understated comedy about two middle-aged brothers who go to study at a Zen monastery in Japan. The two brothers could not be more different. Uwe (Uwe Ochsenknecht) is a bored husband and kitchenware salesman, while Gustav (Gustav Peter Wohler) is a flighty feng shui consultant and Eastern religions devotee. Just as Gustav is preparing to leave for the land of the rising sun, Uwe, whose wife just dumped him, begs his brother to let him tag along. The first night in Tokyo proves to be a disaster. After a night of drinking, the pair get lost, spend the last of their cash on an ill-fated taxi ride, lose their credit cards, and end up sleeping in some boxes on the city streets. But this deprivation prepares them for the hard living of monastic life, including 4:30 a.m. wake up calls, elaborate dining rituals, long periods of silent mediation, and a punishing cleaning routine. As the days wear on, Gustav soon finds himself buckling under the strain while Uwe demonstrates himself to be much more adaptable to a monk's life. The experience eventually brings the night-and-day brothers closer together. This film was screened at the 2000 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

In this taut contemporary thriller, a group of vacationers who find a can of valuable gems must figure out why they're dying one by one in the wilderness. Five German friends travel to South Africa for a rugged 11-day wilderness vacation without cell phones or any other contact with civilization. One of them befriends a stranger and invites him along as they take a chartered plane to a region near the Namibian border. Their hiking and camping expedition goes smoothly until the second day, when they find a dead parachutist with a can of uncut diamonds worth around six million dollars. They decide to bury the man and debate whether they should inform the authorities when they reach civilization. Then someone dies suddenly from an apparent accident. The deaths continue as tensions and suspicions mount. Before it's too late, the survivors have to figure out if the victims died by accident, were killed by an outsider who appears to be stalking them, or were murdered by one or more members of their own group. ~ Todd Kristel, All Movie Guide

The traditional (and not-so-traditional) mating dances of young people in Munich are examined for comic effect in the film Das Merkwuerdige Verhalten Geschlectsreifer Grossstaedter Zur Paarungzeist/Love Scenes From Planet Earth. Charly (Christoph Waltz) is a writer who is lonely and depressed, so one day he "borrows" his publisher's new car and soon attracts the attention of two women, Hilde (Michaela May) and Cornelia (Gudrun Landgrebe). Meanwhile, Charly's former significant other, Manuela (Ann-Kathrin Kramer), is interested in Sven (Heio Von Stetten), whom she met at a mall while he was taking the baby for a stroll. Except that it's not Sven's baby, but Manuela's; while she had given the tyke to her friend Birgit (Isabella Parkinson) to baby-sit for the day, Birgit wanted to spend the day at the gym owned by Jimmy (Oliver Korittke), whom she recently met at a dance party. However, if Birgit is looking for love, Jimmy is the wrong place to look for it; Jimmy is gay, and was at the party mainly because he had his eyes on the host, Peter (Markus Knuefken). This low-key comedy of romantic errors, the feature directorial debut of Marc Rothemund, was a major success in Germany, where it was the second highest grossing domestic release of 1998. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this German psychological drama, troubled Roula finds herself drawn to Leon, an author of children's books who has suffered an enormous emotional and creative blockage ever since his wife died in a motorcycle accident two years before. Leon has only his 12-year-old daughter Tanja to keep him company. As romance blooms between Leon and Roula, his daughter approves. Unfortunately, Roula is carrying heavy emotional baggage stemming from the incest she suffered at the hands of her father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Goran Markovic's semi-autobiographical Tito and Me is the story of a 10-year-old named Zoran (Dimitrie Vojnov), who is growing up in Belgrade in 1954. Zoran is obsessed with Yugoslavia's dictatorial leader, "Comrade Tito," and over the course of the film, the young boy learns that worshipping idols is a naive, foolhardy practice. Tito and Me is the last film to be made in Yugoslavia before the country was torn apart by a civil war in the early '90s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Emerenz Meier may be living as a farmgirl in turn-of-the-century (1890s) Bavaria, but she is not about to let that keep her down. She has talent as a writer, boundless curiosity, tremendous capacity for enjoying life, and a desire to see the world. Soon enough, she abandons her country home and heads off to the nearest city, Passau. As she is nearing the city, she is accosted and nearly raped by a landowner but is saved by the timely intervention of a deaf-mute, who literally scythes the aggressor down. She soon settles in with a rich inn-keeper and works at her writing. She is unable to decide whom she loves more, the inn-keeper or her deaf-mute savior. Despite the advantages of her situation with the rich man, she craves independence more and briefly becomes a prostitute in order to earn the money to go to America. This drama is based on the early life of Emerenz Meier, who went on to become a well-respected German poet. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Jojo (Peter Lohmeyer) was counting on his inheritance from a rich uncle to pay off his gambling debts, but the old man played a dirty trick on him, giving him custody of an oversized dog, and leaving the real cash in the hands of one of his neices. His comfortable fantasy of future solvency has been sorely tried; to restore it, he begins to try wooing his cousin Kathrin (the woman with the loot). However, as things progress, he finds himself actually falling for her, which is perhaps the only really decent thing that he's done in his adult life. When he and a gambling buddy take Kathrin (Anica Dobra) on a jaunt to the south of France, things get pretty dicey when a corrupt cop comes onto the scene. In this romantic thriller, only one will survive. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this politically charged drama, the turbulent times just following Marshal Tito's rejection of ties to Moscow comes to life. Interestingly, even in the first few years after the Yugoslavian leader's death, the subject matter of this film was considered too hot to handle, and the director had to appeal to the courts for permission to shoot it. In the story, Martin is a schoolboy with a sense of the absurd and a willingness to use ridicule to amuse himself and his classmates. He has an uncle who is high up in the nation's bureaucracy who protects him and his grandfather now that his father has died. His grandfather is too stubborn to give his farm to the local farming collective, and Martin himself is in hot water with the principal for making fun of his girlfriend, one of the students at the high school. However, as long as the uncle is able to protect them, they remain out of hot water. Eventually, this situation changes, and things get very chancy indeed for the young satirist and scholar. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

If Musa can only bring himself to stomach his work at the saw mill for a little longer, he will reach retirement age and will have a nice pension. However, a strike has brought home to him just how bad the wages and working conditions are, and he doesn't return after the strike is over. Meanwhile, his son has had no job for a long time but plays soccer all the time, when he is not wooing the girl who runs the newsstand at the train station. Musa is a bad-tempered fellow who quarrels often with his son. On one of these occasions, his wife throws both of them out of the house. Later she goes mad and then dies. Eventually, the son is arrested for a rape he didn't commit, but this doesn't stop the boy and his girlfriend from getting married, they just do it in jail. The father, left alone with his grudges and grievances, seems to collapse in on himself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide