Chiara Schoras Movies
- 2002
Produced and directed by seven Munich Film School students, Honolulu takes place not in Hawaii, but inside of a rural town just outside of Munich, Germany. Several vignettes, lasting approximately 10 to 15 minutes each, are connected by one of the town's public bus routes, outside of which two men (Stefan Maass and Jochen Nickel) booze the night away while waiting for the bus to make its rounds. There is a brief encounter between a shy young man (Daniel Bruehl) and notorious party girl Chiara Schoras), as well as a strange meeting of an eccentric Slav (Aleksandar Jovanovi) and a girl (Julia Hummer) who is fresh from a break-up with her former boyfriend. Other characters work their way into the plot, including lesbian bus driver with dreams of leaving the country for Honolulu, a smooth-talking and slightly unbalanced young man who puts the moves on a shy bride-to-be, and a Middle Eastern immigrant who finds himself comforting a lonely rich girl on her birthday. Honolulu also features Anna Thalbach, Markus Knuefken, Mehdi Moinzadeh, and Alexandra Maria Lara.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stefan Maass, Jochen Nickel, (more)
Peter Bogdanovich turns his sights on the 1920s for a fictitious look at the possible reasons for the death of silent movie producer Thomas Ince (played here by Cary Elwes) after spending a holiday with media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (played by Edward Herrmann). The film begins and ends on Ince's funeral, attended by best-selling novelist Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), who was present when the young producer finally died and who leads the audience through the unsure details of what may have occurred to cause the tragedy. Then, through flashback, we see Elinor arriving on the dock to Hearst's party, which is attended by a number of Hollywood players. Among those in attendance are Ince, his business manager (Victor Slezak), and his irritating mistress (Claudia Harrison. Charlie Chaplin (played by British comic Eddie Izzard) is recovering from a box-office bomb and fearing his 16-year-old mistress is pregnant, not to mention that he is seeing Hearst's lady on the side, the vampish actress Marion Davies (played here by Kirsten Dunst). Also seen are Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly), a clumsy movie critic who works for Hearst, and Joseph (Ronan Vibert), Hearst's private secretary. The film was funded in Europe and also includes in its large cast James Laurenson, Chiara Schoras, and Claudie Blakley. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, (more)
- 1999
In this taut contemporary thriller, a group of vacationers who find a can of valuable gems must figure out why they're dying one by one in the wilderness. Five German friends travel to South Africa for a rugged 11-day wilderness vacation without cell phones or any other contact with civilization. One of them befriends a stranger and invites him along as they take a chartered plane to a region near the Namibian border. Their hiking and camping expedition goes smoothly until the second day, when they find a dead parachutist with a can of uncut diamonds worth around six million dollars. They decide to bury the man and debate whether they should inform the authorities when they reach civilization. Then someone dies suddenly from an apparent accident. The deaths continue as tensions and suspicions mount. Before it's too late, the survivors have to figure out if the victims died by accident, were killed by an outsider who appears to be stalking them, or were murdered by one or more members of their own group. ~ Todd Kristel, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudia Michelsen, Koen de Bouw, (more)
