Peter Kahane Movies

This is a social satire made in the last days of East Germany's existence. It pokes fun at the elephantine and humorless way the ever-present bureaucracy thwarted even the tiniest manifestations of originality. In the story, an architect tries to get approval for a contract which will put him in charge of a major city project. If he can get it, his career will be assured. Before he can get very far, however, political events make a hash out of his whole situation. Other architects also try to get their projects through the bureaucracy and devise countless ways to try and slip something meaningful or original past the dutiful and hard-working guardians of the status-quo. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

What's so funny about a kidnapping? More than you might expect in Bis Zum Horizont Und Weiter/To The Horizon And Beyond, an offbeat comedy from Germany. When Katja (Nina Petri), a petty criminal with a record, is sentenced to another stretch behind bars, her boyfriend Henning (Wolfgang Stumph) decides something needs to be done, so he kidnaps Beate (Corinna Harfouch), the judge who handed down the sentence. Until a ransom can be arranged, Henning hides Beate at a ramshakle house on the outskirts of town where his mother Emmi (Gudrun Okras) lives. However, it turns out Katja has already escaped from custody and is planning on hiding out at Emmi's place; not only are the cops looking for her, but so is her lawyer. Before long, unexpected frendships and unusual alliances form between the assorted inhabitants of the little house as the authorites start to close in. Bis Zum Horizont Und Weiter/To The Horizon And Beyond was shown as part of the New German Films series at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi