Angelika Thomas Movies
- 2002
The German made-for-TV drama Die Hoffnung Stirbt Zuletzt (Final Hope) was originally shot on 16 mm and directed by Marc Rothemud. Enthusiastic country girl Corinna Safranski (Anneke Kim Sarnau) goes to the city when she gets accepted to join the Hamburg Police. She encounters much adversity from her male colleagues and from her boss, Eddy Garbitsch (Axel Prahl). Fellow cop Jens (Wotan Wilke Moehring) starts out as a jerk, but eventually softens up. Hoffnung Stirbt Zuletzt won several awards, including the Golden Camera for Best German Movie Made for Television. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anneke Kim Sarnau, Axel Prahl, (more)
- 2002
An adaptation of the 1999 Danish film Den Eneste Ene and set in modern day Newcastle, England, this easygoing urban comedy concerns a recently widowed father attempting to start anew following the death of his spouse. Though he had been having doubts about their relationship and in particular the prospect of adopting six-year-old African orphan Mgala (Angel Thomas), kitchen fitter Neil (Richard Roxburgh) agreed to the adoption shortly before the death of his wife Sharon (Kerry Rolfe). Despite his single parent status, Neil commences to join mate Stan (Michael Hodgson) in boozing it up at the local pub. Gradually growing closer to new client Stevie (Justine Waddell) despite her failing relationship with footballer lout Sonny (Jonathan Cake), the two embark on a tentative relationship driven by their mutual dissatisfaction with their current circumstances. When Stevie discovers that she is pregnant and that Sonny has been seeing other women behind her back, she and Neil find that love has a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Roxburgh, Justine Waddell, (more)
- 1982
This docudrama is based, in part, on Arnold Zweig's book The Axe of Wandsbek that tells the story of a riot on Sunday, July 18, 1932 in Altona (a Hamburg suburb). Brown-shirts looking for a fight marched into a neighborhood in Altona that was known to be leftist. The march provoked chaos, the police were called in, and 16 people were killed, almost all of them socialists or communists. Afterwards four communists were charged and sentenced to death, an execution carried out in 1933 with an axe. One of the four was a 19-year-old named Bruno Tesch, the one most clearly innocent of the charges against him. Tesch's story is featured in this docudrama, along with another story about a butcher named Albert Teetjen who was called on to execute four other communists in 1938 when the normal executioner was sick. Author Zweig discovered that a butcher had committed suicide after doing exactly what Albert Teetjen did in 1938, and putting two and two together, came up with the rest of his story. This film uses a combination of historical footage and interviews (with architect Albert Speer, participants in the 1932 riot, people who knew Tesch, and others) to provide a documentary complement to the fictionalized account of the events leading to Teetjen's death. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roland Schaefer, Angelika Thomas, (more)
Director Helma Sanders-Brahms reached back into her own wartime childhood for her best known film, Germany Pale Mother (Deutschland bleiche Mutter). The film is based on the life of Sanders-Brahms' mother, fictionalized in the person of Eva Mattes. Ms. Mattes marries Nazi soldier Ernst Jacobi, remaining loyal to her largely absent husband through the fall of Germany and the grim postwar era. The couple has a daughter, for whom the aggressively independent Mattes tries to provide even as those around her starve to death. Originally released in 1980 Germany Pale Mother received its general American release four years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eva Mattes, Ernst Jacobi, (more)
