Nina Petri Movies

First-time German writer-director Sven Taddicken authors and helms the unconventional romance Emmas Gluck (AKA Emmas Bliss, 2006). The film opens on Max (Jordis Triebel), an ungifted car salesman who learns from his physician that he's dying of pancreatic cancer and only has a short time to live. On impulse, Max lifts a large sum of cash from his boss's holdings, and takes off for Mexican beaches. An auto accident, however, waylays him, and he has a chance encounter with Emma, a slightly hostile and thoroughly lonely pig breeder who opts to slaughter her hogs by holding them gently until all of the blood drains out. Emma instantly grows smitten with Max (and her excitement doubles when she learns of the money he pilfered); Max, in return, falls in love with Emma, and the romance drives the encroaching cancer completely out of his mind. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Preteens Sarah Hannemann and Nick Seidensticker co-star in the family-friendly German-language comedy Hilfe!. The two play Emma and Mickey, schoolmates who swap bodies, ala Vice Versa, Dream a Little Dream and Freaky Friday. Emma thus experiences life as a boy, and Mickey experiences life as a girl. After inevitable confusion and a series of madcap adventures, they must quickly figure out how to become themselves again. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Oskar Roehler directs this bleak look at a down-and-out writer's alcohol-drenched final days. Though the central character is named Hanna Flander, the film basically tells the real-life story of noted author Gisela Elsner, who threw herself out of a fourth story window in 1992. Elsner is also the filmmaker's mother. Given the film's highly personal subject matter, Roehler lends the film a remarkable emotional remoteness along with a breathtaking visual style, shot in stark black and white. It opens with unrepentant Leninist Hanna (Hannelore Elsner, no relation) drunken, depressed, and chain-smoking as she watches the Berlin Wall collapse while in her Munich abode. She sells most of her belongings and moves to Berlin, hooking up with old flame Jaochim Rau (Michael Gwisdek) in the process. She suffers one setback after another, ultimately ending up in a scuzzy tenement in East Berlin, which she gives to a kind Eastern German woman (Claudia Geisler). A long admirer of Communism and East Germany, she has difficult time believing the realities of that repressive police state. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

One of Germany's most important female directors, Doris Dörrie chose the subject of the universal quest for happiness for the film Bin ich Schön?. Set in Spain and Germany, the film interlaces individual stories of broken hearts and broken dreams with aspirations of new beginnings. On a hot afternoon in Spain, Linda is standing beside the road wearing a thin summer dress and carrying a handbag. A car stops and Werner, a robust-looking German, picks her up. She shows him a note which says, "I am deaf-mute and in need of your help." Werner is touched. As they move off together, Linda throws her handbag out of the window. In a near-by motel, Klaus is on the phone to Munich trying to convince his reluctant girlfriend Franziska to come down to Spain. Linda and Werner have checked into the next room where Werner is asking Linda to hit him with his belt. Plots and subplots intertwine until the film reaches a climax during a religious procession. In an ironic way, the film celebrates life with a message that life is here today and then it's gone. No beginning, no end and enjoy it while you can. Bin ich schön? was screened as part of the New German Films at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

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, Rovi

This German psychodrama looks into the events that lead an introverted woman into taking extreme action against her oppressors. Poor Maria has spent her life being ignored and pushed around by men. First there was her invalid father whom she waited on hand and foot. Then there was her cold and emotionally distant husband. Maria has been internalizing her rage for years. Her anger finally erupts when her husband takes the little bit of money she'd been secretly saving over the last few years. She kills both her husband and her father. The film ends with her new boyfriend's distressed facial expression as he learns of her murders. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi