Sebastian Blomberg Movies

Julie Delpy directs and stars in this biography of Erzebet Bathory, the 17th century countess whose love of a younger man drove her to madness and beyond. At the dawn of the 17th century, Countess Bathory was the most powerful woman in Hungary. At the age of 14, she married a powerful warlord twice her age and bore him four children. While her husband was away fighting wars, Countess Bathory maintained their estate with the help of her one true confidant, a powerful witch named Anna Darvulia. Over time, Countess Bathory's gained great influence, even holding sway over decisions made by the King. But she was unwilling to accept a world in which men were able to break the rules without consequence while women were expected to be unquestionably subservient, and after her husband died, Countess Bathory fell deeply in love with a young nobleman named Istvan (Daniel Brühl), whom she encountered at a lavish feast. Istvan too was smitten, though his relationship with the countess was cut short when his father, Count Thurzo (William Hurt), forced him to break off the romance. Meanwhile, as Countess Bathory becomes obsessed with the prospect that age was a factor in the failure of the relationship, Count Thurzo begins crafting an elaborate plot against her. Eventually Countess Bathory's blinding sadness gives way to irreversible madness, and she becomes convinced that she can maintain her youth and beauty forever by bathing in the blood of virgins. Her dementia and obsession flowing like the virginal blood she bathes in every night, Countess Bathory eventually realizes that she has become the victim of a vast political conspiracy hatched by the father of her beloved. But by now it's already too late, Countess Erzebet Bathory's downfall had already been set into motion. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Director Uli Edel teams with screenwriter Bernd Eichinger to explore a dark period in German history with this drama detailing the rise and fall of the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist organization that became increasingly active following World War II. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, the Red Army Faction was formed by the radicalized children of the Nazi generation with the intended goal of battling Western imperialism and the West German establishment. Adapted from author Stefan Aust's definitive account of the group that resorted to killing innocent civilians in the name of democracy and justice, The Baader Meinhof Complex stars Moritz Bleibtreu as Andreas Baader and Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof. Bruno Ganz co-stars as Horst Herold, the head of the German police force faced with the task of bringing the Red Army Faction to justice. ~ Jason Buchanan, 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

What to Do in Case of Fire is a stylish German comedy from director Gregor Schnitzler. A 20-year-old bomb goes off in an abandoned mansion in present day Berlin, and all the evidence implicates a a group of anarchists that planted the explosives in the late 1980s . By this time, however, most of the original group have become hip urban professionals who don't want to be associated with revolutionary activity. With the police hot on their trail, they reunite for the first time in 12 years to plot a scheme to avoid jail. Starring Til Schweiger, Martin Feifel, and Sebastian Blomberg. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

A determined medical student uncovers shady goings on during a prestigious summer anatomy course in this German thriller. When Paula Henning (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) learns that she's been accepted to a highly competitive internship at a Heidelberg research institution, she's ecstatic. The daughter of a simple family doctor, she prefers to model herself after her terminally ill grandfather, who was once dean of the same Heidelberg university. Stern lecturer Prof. Grombek (Traugott Buhre) promises that half the students won't be around when the course ends; his prediction turns out to be true, but it's not because of the brutal exams. It seems that a group of renegade doctors is performing dissections on unwilling, still-living victims, which helps explain the artful laboratory in which plasticized human remains are lovingly displayed. Paula stumbles onto this plot when a recent acquaintance turns up on her dissection table, his blood the consistency of rubber. Studious to the extreme, Paula investigates his death with scientific determination -- despite the flirtations of handsome fellow student Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg) and the feel-good urgings of Gretchen (Anna Loos), her sexually promiscuous but utterly brilliant roommate. Just as Paula is preparing to expose the existence of the Anti-Hippocratic Society, a Nazi-affiliated group of medical malcontents, Gretchen falls prey to their extreme methods. Soon Paula, too, is in danger of becoming just another addition to the display case. Extremely popular in its native country, Anatomie was dubbed into English for American release under the title Anatomy. A sequel was in production as of 2002. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide