Hannelore Elsner

Blood may be thicker than water, but that doesn't mean it mixes easily in this comedy from first-time director Daniel Walta. Lorenz Goldt (Christoph Maria Herbst) is a television chat show host with an outsized ego and an older brother Jakob (Klaus J. Behrendt) he hasn't spoken with in years. However, Lorenz gets the bad news that his mother has contracted Alzheimer's disease, and when he has to pass the information along to Jakob, he takes it as a sign that they should bury the hatchet. However, when the brothers set out on a road trip, Lorenz and Jakob discover their personalities don't mesh any better than they ever did, and things only get worse when they find themselves stranded in a small farming community. En route, Lorenz and Jakob pick up a hitch-hiker, disaffected teenage runaway Lara (Sophie Rogall), whose adolescent angst only fuels the tension. Jakobs Bruder (aka Jacob's Brother) received its American premiere at the 2008 Berlin and Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Rudolf Thome's The Visible and the Invisible stars Guntam Brattia as Marquard von Polheim, a respected artist who has a long-term, emotionally tumultuous relationship with another artist named Maria (Hannelore Elsner). Although they have many angry fights, they also express real tenderness toward one another. Marquard, however, initiates a relationship with a model he works with, and confesses his confusion during a road trip with his daughter. In the meantime, Maria has rekindled a relationship with an old lover. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A man gets in touch with his spiritual side for a very material reason in this comedy from Germany. Jacob Zuckermann was a young man living in Eastern Germany when the Berlin Wall divided the nation in 1961. Jacob's mother escaped to West Berlin with her other son, Samuel, in tow, but Jacob was left behind. Putting himself though school, Jacob became a lawyer, albeit one with a less than prestigious practice, and changed his name to Jaeckie Zucker. However, after Germany was reunified, Jaeckie's (Henry Huebchen) practice collapsed, and he began making a living hustling pool. Luck has not been kind to Jaeckie lately, and he owes 60,000 dollars to the bank. Jaeckie thinks he could win enough money to pay his debts in an upcoming high-stakes pool tournament, but he doesn't have the 5,000 dollars needed to enter. Bad news has a silver lining for Jaeckie when he gets word that his mother has passed on, and he and Samuel stand to inherit a fortune from her estate. However, there's a catch -- she has specified she must have an Orthodox Jewish funeral if her sons are to receive the money, and while Samuel (Udo Samel) is a strict follower of the faith, Jaeckie's religious education stopped not long after his mother left. Jaeckie and his conspicuously gentile wife, Marlene (Hannelore Elsner), head to West Berlin, where they have a less-than-joyous reunion with Samuel and attempt to help with the details of the funeral while giving themselves an overnight education in Judaism. Meanwhile, Jaeckie schemes to find a way to sit shivah and play in the pool tournament at the same time. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This Austrian sci-fi film set in post-nuclear Earth is about a pair of policemen whose jobs consist (among other things) of executing people who have prematurely used up all their "energy clip" credits in an Orwellian society. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

A woman gets plunged into an adventure in this German made-for-television movie. Bettina Kupfer stars as Petra, a pizza-delivery girl who gets through her mundane day job by living vicariously through the characters in her favorite books. She gets more than she bargained for though, when one of her routine evening deliveries turns into a scene right out of an adventure novel. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Morgen Grauen is a sci-fi action film set in an indeterminate future, when citizens above the age of 15 have to use an "energy chip" to buy anything -- the catch is that they cannot use the chip for self-aggrandizement or an execution squad comes after them. When Sarah gets on the list of a death squad, Len, one of the executioners, likes her too much to carry out his orders, while Jacob, a particularly brutal killer, has no problem with killing anyone. Soon Len has teamed up with Sarah, and both are chased by Jacob toward an exciting climax to the fast-paced action that dominates throughout the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Albrech Berblinger (Tilo Prückner) is an inventive young man who is working as an apprentice tailor in 18th-century Ulm. He discovers how to make a sailplane which will enable him to fly. As his discovery coincides with France's bloody revolution, this causes him to become a pawn in the political machinations of the rulers of his portion of Germany. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide