Bibiana Beglau Movies

When the willful son of a bourgeois German couple commits a horrifying act of murder, the desperate attempts made by his mother to cover-up the crime soon finds the family unit crumbling beneath the weight of the child's undeniable psychosis in director Aelrun Goette's visually arresting psychological thriller. Jenny (Bibiana Beglau) and Michael (Dirk Borchardt) have all the amenities of a happy modern couple - including a beautiful house in an affluent suburb of Berlin and a seemingly-angelic six-year-old boy named Timmy (Adrian Wahlen) - but a closer inspection reveals that things aren't quite as perfect as surface appearances would suggest. With a promotion within his grasp, policeman Michael spends long hours on the job as wife Jenny tends to raising young Timmy. But Timmy seems to possess something of a sadistic streak, and when the unstable boy kills his young playmate Luzi and mother does her best to protect her son despite the horrific nature of his crime, simmering secrets gradually begin to erupt into a violent boil. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Acclaimed filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff directed this story of a war of words between a Nazi soldier and a man of the cloth. In 1942, Henri Kremer (Ulrich Matthes) is a Catholic priest who, like three thousand other Catholic clergymen, has been sent to the Dachau prison camp by Nazi authorities for espousing his faith and speaking out against the Axis leadership. Shortly after Kremer receives word that his mother has passed away, he's pulled from the ranks at the camp and sent to Luxembourg, where he used to live and lead a congregation. While Kremer at first believes his well-connected family has arranged for his release, he soon finds this is not the case -- Untersturmfuehrer Gebhardt (August Diehl), a ranking member of the Gestapo, informs Kremer that he's been given a nine-day respite from the camp for a special assignment. Kremer is well acquainted with Bishop Philipp (Hilmar Thate), leader of Luxembourg's Catholic community, and the Nazis want the bishop to sign a letter pledging full cooperation with German authorities, something he has been unwilling even to discuss. Gebhardt wants Kremer to persuade the bishop to sign the document; if Kremer fails to meet this goal, he's told 18 priests from Luxembourg currently in Dachau will all be killed. What Gebhardt prefers not to mention is that if he can't find a way to secure the bishop's cooperation, he'll be transferred from his comfortable post to a death camp in Eastern Europe. Der Neunte Tag was based on the true story of Luxembourg priest Father Jean Bernard, who wrote of his experiences in the book Pfarrerblock Z4587. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Eight master directors of world cinema combine forces for this omnibus film that focuses cumulatively on the subject of time. Bookended by cello interludes, Ten Minutes Older: The Cello presents just one parameter to each of its filmmakers: no final entry can be more or less than ten minutes long. The resulting films run the gamut of styles and moods, beginning with Bernardo Bertolucci's Histoire d'Eaux, which presents an Indian fable about a mentor's impatience. In Mike Figgis' entry About Time 2, the director continues with the experimental structure he pioneered in Timecode; similarly, Jean-Luc Godard uses his time allotment to present a fractured series of clips on youth, death, and love. Another non-narrative entry, Volker Schlöndorff's The Enlightenment presents a series of images on racism. Claire Denis' effort Vers Nancy chronicles a philosophical discussion on time between a teacher and student on a train ride; in Jirí Menzel's Ten Minutes After, the effects of time on aging Czech actor Rudolf Hrusinsky are documented. In perhaps the film's most narrative-oriented segment, director Michael Radford offers up a sci-fi vision of an astronaut returning to earth to find that his son has aged faster than he has. Ten Minutes Older: The Cello is a companion piece to 2002's Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet, which aired in the U.S. on the Showtime cable network. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Noted German director Volker Schlondorff helms this riveting exploration of 1970s West German political terrorism. The film opens with Rita (Bibiana Beglau) reminiscing to her unseen friend Tatjana of her life as a radical. Cut to a flashback of her along with her like-minded colleagues robbing a bank. Later while traveling from Beirut to East Berlin, she is carted away for questioning. When the interrogators learn of Rita's vocation, Stasi officer Erwin (Martin Wuttke) releases her and tells her to consult him if she needs help. After she botches the breakout of her boyfriend Andi (Harald Schrott from a West Berlin jail, she calls on her Stasi contact to protect the gang and provide safe passage to Beirut and later to Paris. Tension between the group members -- particularly between Andi and Rita -- soon grow strained. After Rita almost gets arrested for killing a cop, she turns to Erwin, who comes up with a different offer. Rita will stay in East Germany as a working proletarian under an assumed name. While in East Berlin, she befriends Tatjana (Nadja Uhl) who soon becomes her lover. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi