Florian Lukas

There's a new battleground in the war between men and women in this comedy from Germany. Paul (Christian Ulmen) has persuaded his fiancée Anna (Nora Tschirner) to pull up stakes and move with him to the town where he grew up, but it's not until they've settled in that Anna learns Paul had an ulterior motive -- he used to play in the town's semi-pro soccer team, and his main reason for moving back was to be able to take the field with his buddies again. Anna, who expresses little interest in football, ends up spending a lot of her time with the wives and girlfriends of the other guys on the team, all of whom seem weary of taking a back seat to their men's obsession with the game. When matters come to a head, Anna offers a challenge to Paul -- she'll put together a team of local women, and if they can defeat Paul and his pals, the men will give up soccer for good. Paul agrees to what seems to be an easy bet, but what he doesn't know is that Anna was a junior league soccer champ in college, and that she's brought along Kim (Anneke Kim Sarnau), an old friend who is now a goalie with a top women's professional team, as a ringer. Anna also considers bringing along her father (Heinz Hoenig), once a respected big league soccer coach, to help, but given the bad blood between them, Anna isn't sure if his skills are worth the trouble. Venus FC was a remake of a Finnish film of the same title, which was released the same year as the German picture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A financially devastated German town receives an encouraging boost with the arrival of a popular soccer star, though a heated love triangle threatens to overshadow the good vibes in this sexually liberated comedy from filmmaker Norbert Baumgarten. The arrival of soccer superstar Blondi has brought a wind of rejuvenation to the downtrodden eastern German town, but as the championship game draws near, the soccer team president's son, Micah, threatens his relationship with longtime girlfriend Sylvia by sleeping with her best friend. Incensed at her boyfriend's infidelity, Sylvia seduces Blondi on the eve of the championship game, leaving the whole town wondering just what has happened to their newfound lucky charm. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A criminal discovers that stealing from a child isn't as simple -- or as easy to get away with -- as he thought in this comedy-drama for the family. Emil (Tobias Retzlaff) is a 12-year-old boy who lives in Germany with his father after his parents were divorced. Emil's father, a salesman, gets in an auto accident that sends him to the hospital and costs him his driver's license for three months. With his mother living in Canada, Emil's schoolteacher arranges for the boy to stay with her sister, a fellow teacher, while Emil's father is on the mend. While taking the train to Berlin, Emil finds himself discussing his father's predicament with a stranger who broaches the possibility of selling him a phony driver's ID for his father. Emil expresses interest in the idea, which leads to the stranger robbing the young man of all his belongings. Emil, however, is too bright and resourceful to let the thief go without a fight; the lad trails the crook as he gets off the train, and with the help of a group of streetwise youngsters, Emil soon has dozens of kids in Berlin acting as his eyes and ears as they scheme to get Emil's money back. This was the fourth screen adaptation of the popular children's story Emil Und Die Detektive by Erich Kastner; the supporting cast includes Anja Sommavilla, Jurgen Vogel, and Maria Schrader. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Thomas (Florian Lukas) is a creepy loner obsessed with his neighbor, Romanian prostitute Wanda (Oana Solomon). He spends his time photographing Wanda's myriad clients and then threatening them with blackmail, anonymously depositing his resulting income in Wanda's mailbox. One day Wanda stops by to borrow some flour from her erstwhile stalker/admirer and realizes he's the one putting cash in her mailbox. She asks Thomas to stop, but he refuses. Instead, carrying enough ammunition to outfit a small civil war, Thomas tracks Wanda to a sleazy Berlin nightclub where he tells her that he is her guardian angel and wants to give a better life to her and her young son. Since Wanda's son is being held by thugs to whom she is in debt, she accepts Thomas' proposition, and the two set off on a merry spree to wrangle some much-needed funding from her clients. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

In the port town of Hamburg, Germany, Floyd (Frank Giering) disappoints his sanctimonious boss by announcing that he's shipping out to South Africa and Singapore now that his two-year probation for an unspecified juvenile offense has been completed. When he shares the news with his devoted friends Chubby (Antoine Monot Jr.), a mechanic, and Ricco (Florian Lukas), a fast-food cook and would-be b-boy, they can't comprehend their thoughtful friend's willingness to trade camaraderie for a wider view of the world. Overcoming their anger and bewilderment, the guys decide to spend one last night with Floyd, but the problem, as always, is how to find some fun. A succession of fast-food restaurants, parking garages, and local watering holes chronicles the inherent boredom of life in the provinces. But a run-in with a convention of dragster-racing Elvis impersonators sends the boys and their friend Telsa Julia Hummer on a series of adventures that veers from the farcical to the almost-tragic. Absolute Giganten was screened at the 1999 Flanders Film Festival and thereafter received limited international distribution. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide