Hanns ZischlerFilmography

Hilde

Actors: Heike Makatsch, Dan Stevens, Monika Bleibtreu, Michael Gwisdek, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: This lavish, broadly-scaled feature from director Kai Wessel dramatizes the life of Hildegarde Knef (1925-2002), arguably the most popular actress and chanteuse in post-WWII Germany. Yet in lieu of presenting a chronological and all-inclusive account of Knef's decades-long career, Wessel Read More

A Year Ago in Winter

Actors: Corinna Harfouch, Josef Bierbichler, Karoline Herfurth, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: Two very different people find out they have more in common than they imagined in this emotional drama from Germany. Elaine Richter (Corinna Harfouch) is a middle-aged woman who approaches artist Max Hollander (Josef Bierbichler) with an unusual commission -- she'd like a dual portrait of her two Read More

Munich

Actors: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: Much as Steven Spielberg followed 1993's special-effects blockbuster Jurassic Park with a far more downbeat and personal project later the same year, Schindler's List, in 2005 after tearing up the box office with War of the Worlds the director closed out the year with a powerful and thoughtful Read More

The Ring Finger

Actors: Olga Kurylenko, Stipe Erceg, Marc Barbé, Edith Scob

Synopsis: Yoko Ogawa's cult novel serves as the inspiration for director Diane Bertrand's haunting erotic drama starring Olga Kurylenko. Iris (Kurylenko) is looking for employment when she goes to work for an eccentric scientist who specializes in preserving people's personal mementos. Later, as Iris Read More

Walk on Water

Actors: Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, Carolina Peters

Synopsis: An Israeli agent with a license to kill is thrown off his game by two people who challenge his deeply held assumptions in this drama. Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is an agent with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence and security force. A man capable of making snap moral judgments but unwilling to reveal his Read More

Olgas Sommer

Actors: Bruno Todeschini, Clémence Poésy, Katja Flint, Sebastian Blomberg, Sunnyi Melles

Synopsis: A pair of unlikely lovers make their way across Europe in this offbeat comedy drama from Germany. Olga (Clemence Poesy) is a 16-year-old girl who imagines she'll be spending an uneventful summer tending the counter at her parent's filling station when a driver has a wreck in a nearby garden. It Read More

Post Impact

Actors: Dean Cain

Synopsis: The post-apocalyptic action film Post Impact stars Dean Cain as Captain Tom Parker, who, after a meteor has caused a new ice age on Earth, must travel across the desolate land that was once Europe with a hodgepodge of military officers and scientists in order to help save some of the few remaining Read More

Saltimbank

Actors: Jeanne Balibar, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Jean-Marc Barr, Micheline Presle, Michèle Moretti

Taking Sides

Actors: Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgård, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birgit Minichmayr, Oleg Tabakov

Synopsis: Set in Germany in 1946, Taking Sides tells the story of the investigation of Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgård), the renowned conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, by the American occupying army. Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel) has been told by his Read More

Amen

Actors: Ulrich Tukur, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Mühe, Michel Duchaussoy, Ion Caramitru

Synopsis: The collective crimes against humanity known as the Holocaust have been well-documented since the end of World War II, but lingering questions remain about how much was known about the Nazi mass-extermination schemes outside Germany, and what could have been done to prevent them. Political Read More

Rot und blau

Actors: Hannelore Elsner, Serpil Turhan, Hanns Zischler, Karl Kranzkowski, Adriana Altaras

Synopsis: German filmmaker Rudolf Thome writes, directs, and produces the comedy drama Red & Blue, the first film of a proposed trilogy. Following the death of her father, twentysomething Ilke (Serpil Turhan) takes the train from Turkey to Berlin with a suitcase full of money. She soon hires her father's Read More

Petites Coupures

Actors: Daniel Auteuil, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ludivine Sagnier, Pascale Bussières, Catherine Mouchet

Synopsis: Pascal Bonitzer's heavily plotted comedy Petites Coupures (Small Cuts) opens with journalist Bruno (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife, Gaelle (Emmanuelle Devos), having it out over his affair with Nathalie (Ludivine Sagnier). After an invitation from Bruno's uncle Gerard (Jean Yanne), Bruno and Read More

Kafka Goes to the Movies

Crew: Director

Vaeter

Actors: Sebastian Blomberg, Maria Schrader, Ezra Valentin Lenz, Christiane Paul, Ulrich Noethen

Synopsis: A hectic young father's family life takes a turn for the worse in Swiss director Dani Levy's 2002 comedy/drama I'm the Father. Architect Marco Krieger (Sebastian Blomberg) has been working hard on a new project that will be the crowning achievement to his short career and will also make his name Read More

Der Schone Tag

Synopsis: Deniz (Serpil Turhan) is an actress of Turkish ancestry in her early twenties who is living in Berlin. One day, she wakes up in an unusually good mood, and decides it's time she does something to improve her life. Over the course of the day, things begin to go her way -- she gets a job dubbing a Read More

Beck: Sista Vittnet

Actors: Peter Haber, Mikael Persbrandt, Malin Birgerson, Marie Goranzon, Hanns Zischler

Sunshine

Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Ehle, Molly Parker

Synopsis: The fortunes of a family of Hungarian Jews are followed over the course of nearly 150 years in this epic historical drama, with leading man Ralph Fiennes playing three different roles. The story begins in the late 18th century, as Aaron and Josefa Sonnenschein (the name means "Sunshine" in German) Read More

Paradiso - sieben Tage mit sieben Frauen

Actors: Hanns Zischler, Cora Frost, Adriana Altaras

Synopsis: What would happen if you gathered all the lovers you have had in your life in a single room and let them interact for a week? For his 60th birthday, a self-absorbed composer, Adam (Hanns Zischler), does just that: he assembles seven of the most influential women from his life and invites them to Read More

Die Schuld Der Liebe

Actors: Sandrine Bonnaire, Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Gertraud Jesserer

Synopsis: In this Austrian-French-Swiss thriller, upwardly mobile career woman Monika Besse (Sandrine Bonnaire) returns home to Luxembourg in order to join detective Schweiger (Rudiger Vogler) in an investigation into the death of her politician father. The situation leads to an identity crisis as Monika Read More

Letters from the East

Synopsis: Anna and her father fled Estonia during WW II and moved to England. At the time, she believed that her mother was dead. In 1989, Anna's father dies and shortly thereafter she finds a bunch of old photographs and letters. Reading them, she begins to reassemble a clearer picture of her Read More

Das Baby der schwangeren Toten

Du Fond du Coeur: Germaine et Benjamin

Actors: Anne Brochet, Benoit Regent, Francois-Regis Marchasson, Frances Barber, Sophie Broustal, Thibault de Montalembert

Synopsis: This film which dramatizes the tempestuous love affair between Benjamin Constant, a Franco Swiss author and statesman, and Madame de Stael was shot with a unique and innovative process. The movie was first in high-definition digital video which was subsequently transferred to 35mm. The film begins Read More

Der Blaue

Actors: Manfred Krug, Ulrich Mühe, Meret Becker, Marijam Agischewa, Klaus Manchen

Synopsis: In this German political drama, an ex-Stasi agent encounters an old friend whom he may have betrayed after his friend tried to escape East Germany. The former East German agent is Otto Skrodt who after many years is about to be promoted in the highest government ranks. He is anxious to maintain a Read More

The Cement Garden

Actors: Andrew N. Robertson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sinéad Cusack, Alice Coulthard, Ned Birkin

Synopsis: Ian McEwan's disturbing novel is given a chilly shimmer in this film adaptation by Andrew Birkin. The film takes place in a concrete slab of a house situated on the outskirts of an English town. The father (Hanns Zischer) is a consumptive creep, while the mother (Sinead Cusack) is a sweet and Read More

Desire

Actors: Greta Scacchi, Vincent D'Onofrio, Claudine Auger

Synopsis: Greta Scacchi plays a famous feminist activist, while Vincent D'Onofrio portrays a humble Scots fisherman in this film from director Andrew Birkin. Despite the obvious ideological chasm between them, the two fall in love. The couple spend the rest of the film running away from commitment, only to Read More

Juste Avant L'Orage

Actors: Laura Morante, Christophe Malavoy, Zabou, Christophe Odent

Synopsis: In this somewhat literary exploration of the meaning of romance, loosely based on the works of Henry James, five modern-day couples gather at a country estate to mark the anniversary of their long friendship. Their romantic maneuverings, past and present, are too complex to summarize here. Read More

Faraway, So Close!

Actors: Horst Buchholz, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Nastassja Kinski, Heinz Rühmann, Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Lou Reed, Willem Dafoe

Synopsis: Wim Wenders revisits his masterpiece Der Himmel Uber Berlin in this film which picks up several years after the original left off. Cassiel (Otto Sander) is an angel who watches over the lives of the people of recently reunified Berlin with Raphaella (Nastassja Kinski). Damiel (Bruno Ganz) Read More

Europa, Europa

Actors: Marco Hofschneider, Julie Delpy, André Wilms, René Hofschneider, Piotr Kozlowski, Aschley Wanninger, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: This drama was based on the true story of a young German Jew who survived the Holocaust by falling in with the Nazis. Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider) is the son of a Jewish shoe salesman coming of age in Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler. In 1938, a group of Nazis attack Solomon's family Read More

Allemagne Annee 90 Neuf Zero

Actors: Eddie Constantine, Hanns Zischler, Claudia Michelsen, André S. Labarthe

Synopsis: Germany Year Nine Zero follows an old spy's journey back to France from the east. Since the Cold War has ended the spy is unclear about who his enemies are, and he doesn't know what to do with himself. Jean-Luc Godard's film is a series of scenes that present his thoughts on European unification Read More

Der Rosengarten

Actors: Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, Peter Fonda, Jan Niklas, Katarina Lena Muller

Synopsis: The US/German co-production The Rose Garden is based on an actual court case. Cast against type, Maximillian Schell plays a shabby old man who, without warning, attacks well-to-do Kurt Hubner at the Frankfurt airport. Hubner presses charges, and it looks like an open-and-shut case. But Read More

Francesco

Actors: Mickey Rourke, Helena Bonham Carter, Paolo Bonacelli, Andréa Ferréol, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: Told in flashback, the film relates Francis of Assisi's evolution from rich man's son to religious humanitarian and eventually to full-fledged saint. Francesco was based on Hermann Hesse's Francis of Assisi, which director Liliana Cavani had previously filmed in 1966. The Saint and founder of the Read More

Docteur M.

Actors: Alan Bates, Jennifer Beals, Jan Niklas, Hanns Zischler, Benoit Regent

Synopsis: Noted French director Claude Chabrol helmed this oddity, a remake of German director Fritz Lang's 1922 classic Dr. Mabuse. The film features an all-star international cast as it tells the futuristic horror story of a bizarre epidemic which has swept West Berlin leaving a grim trail of grisly Read More

Mon Cher Sujet

Actors: Gaële Le Roi, Anny Romand, Helene Roussel, Yves Neff, Bernard Woringer

Synopsis: Three generations of women discuss their inner emotions and their interaction with society in this drama from longtime Jean-Luc Godard protégé Anne-Marie Mieville. She uses the sudden editing stops seen in Godard's early work to tell the story of these noble women who live in a world dominated by Read More

Himmelsheim

Actors: Elke Sommer, Sigi Zimmerschied, Hanns Zischler, Elisabeth Welz

Synopsis: In this comedy, a little village which is so idyllic that, as one reviewer put it "even the cats and dogs are friends," is threatened with destruction, as plans are announced that it is slated to be demolished to make way for a new express train line. Internationally known star Elke Sommer is in Read More

Das Treibhaus

Actors: Christian Doermer, Jörg Hube, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: An author recites from his novel about the economic conditions in Germany before the end of World War II in this boring drama. As the man reads, another actor performs to the spoken words. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide Read More

Milan Noir

Actors: Isabelle Huppert, Joaquim de Almeida, David Warrilow, Hanns Zischler, Jean Benguigui

Synopsis: Isabelle Huppert stars in this thriller as Sarah, a woman who has settled into a more or less normal life in Milan after her lover, a much-wanted terrorist, left the scene. Her life becomes complicated indeed when she becomes aware that he is about to return. The difficulty is that not only is she Read More

Tarot

Actors: Vera Tschechowa, Hanns Zischler, Rüdiger Vogler, Katharina Bohm, William Berger

Synopsis: Set in a country estate beside the river Alz, the focus on this intellectual German drama, an adaptation of a text by Goethe, is on the complex interaction and conversations between four people involved with the film industry. Edouard is a restless filmmaker who is planning to make a film out of Read More

Douce France

Actors: Barbara Rudnik, Andréa Ferréol, Hito Jaulmes, Hanns Zischler, Patrick Bouchitey

Synopsis: In this drama set in the south of France during World War II, the realities of war lose out to a melodramatic rendering of the fortunes of Lise, a gorgeous German Jewess (Barbara Rudnik). Lise escapes certain death in Nazi Germany by making her way to the south of France, only to be threatened Read More

Anemia

Actors: Hanns Zischler, Gioia Maria Scola, Gerard Landry

Synopsis: This horror film concerns Umberto (Hanns Zischler) as a zipped-up, buttoned-down, formal leader in the Communist Party in Italy who would benefit by relaxation therapy. Underneath this exterior lies a man obsessed with blood, a fixation that is first fed when he spends some eerie days in his Read More

Lieber Vater

Actors: Renate Steiger, Hanns Zischler, Marina Wandruszka

Synopsis: A heartwarming human interest story focusing on a young 13-year-old boy insecure about his father's affections, Lieber Vater is set in a small town in West Germany where the father of the title (Hubert Kronlachner) works as a baker. He is an outgoing man who admires beautiful women, loves Read More

The Berlin Affair

Actors: Gudrun Landgrebe, Kevin McNally, Mio Takaki, Hanns Zischler, Andrea Prodan, Philippe Leroy, Massimo Girotti

Synopsis: In 1938 Berlin, Gudrun Landgrebe, wife of Nazi functionary Kevin McNally, begins taking art lessons. She makes the acquaintance of another student, Japanese ambassador's daughter Mio Takaki. Soon afterwards, the two women begin a passionate lesbian affair. This leads to a chain reaction of Read More

Les Cavaliers de l'Orage

Actors: Marlène Jobert, Gerard Klein, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Wadeck Stanczak, Pinkas Braun

Synopsis: Marie (Marlene Jobert) is a pretty female physician who attracts the strong romantic interest of two brothers during World War I in this uninspired drama by Gérard Vergez. The brothers meet her when she is on duty in Turkey -- one brother is stationed there and the other becomes her ambulance Read More

Das Autogramm

Actors: Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: In an overly-simplified parable about right and wrong, a folk singer and a boxer arrive in a small town together on the train, invited by the town to participate in a festival. When they get there, first the brutish military police search both of them for evidence of insurrection or rebellion Read More

L'Air Du Crime

Actors: Hélène Surgère, Tchéky Karyo, Jean Bouise, Laura Morante, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: Ostensibly about the sudden disappearance of a businessman and the subsequent behavior of his wife Elena (Helen Surgere), his son Robert (Tcheky Karyo), and his accountant (Jean Bouise), this allegorical film is really a weighty statement on the nature of Swiss society. After her husband has Read More

Die Leidenschaftlichen

Actors: Lutz Weidlich, Sunnyi Melles, Hanns Zischler, Wolf Kaiser, Sigfrit Steiner

Synopsis: This film picks up the story of how Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) came to write The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), and then how the character Werther himself seemed to affect the life of his equally young, 25-year-old creator. After arriving in Frankfurt having just obtained his law Read More

System Ohne Schatten

Actors: Bruno Ganz, Dominique Laffin, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: In a complex plot that loses punch through weak dialogue, a computer hack, his love interest, and a friend plan a bank heist involving the transfer of funds from a Berlin bank to a bank in Zurich "over the wires." They have everything worked out when they realize that they will have to join forces Read More

L'Allegement

Actors: Anne Caudry, Anne Marie Blanc, Serge Avedikian, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: In this surreal, overstated, black-and-white film by Marcel Schuepbach, a young woman is slowly driven to near insanity by an inner desire for a passionate existence, while she lives a dull life at her grandmother's country home. The grandmother recalls how her own daughter lost hold of sanity and Read More

Die Flambierte Frau

Actors: Gudrun Landgrebe, Mathieu Carrière, Hanns Zischler, Gabriele Lafari

Synopsis: Gudrun Landgrebe plays a housewife who abruptly leaves her husband for a life of prostitution. At first, she retains her staid, middle-class values, but before long she is one of the most sexually adventurous women walking the streets. Soon she has more business than she can manage, forcing her to Read More

Domino

Actors: Katharina Thalbach, Bernhard Wicki, Anne Bennent, Hanns Zischler, Klaus Pohl

Synopsis: In an extended, two-hour, black-and-white record of the mental disintegration of theatrical-star Lisa (Katharina Thalbach), director (Thomas Brasch) follows her life through a successful performance, a breakdown during another performance, the death of a director friend, constant intrusions into Read More

Logik Des Gefuehls

Actors: Rüdiger Vogler, Daphne Moore, Grischa Huber

Synopsis: Random encounters, random dialogue, and random thinking characterize one man's journey from the south end of Europe to his home, after his wife has left him shell-shocked by exiting from his life and getting on with hers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide Read More

Doktor Faustus

Actors: Jon Finch, Hanns Zischler, Marie-Helene Breillat, Andre Heller

Synopsis: Doktor Faustus was adapted from Thomas Mann's epic novel of the same name about a composer, Adrian Leverkuehn (Jon Finch), who sells his soul to the devil for the acquisition of genius in his lifetime. Leverkuehn intentionally contracts syphilis from an infected prostitute because he believes that Read More

Etwas Wird Sichtbar

Actors: Hanns Zischler, Inga Humpe, Bruno Ganz

Synopsis: Scenes from the Vietnam war are enacted by Asian and white actors, captioned, and juxtaposed with a slow-paced commentary that gives time for reflection on the message conveyed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide Read More

Malevil

Actors: Michel Serrault, Jacques Dutronc, Robert Dhéry, Jacques Villeret, Hanns Zischler

Synopsis: In this French science fiction thriller, nuclear war breaks out over Europe, and a group of visitors to a local chateau take cover in the basement. When they venture outside after the fighting stops, they discover that the chateau has sustained serious damage and the surrounding lands have been Read More

Engel Aus Eisen

Actors: Hilmar Thate, Katharina Thalbach, Ilse Page

Synopsis: The subject of this historical drama is a splintering Berlin in the years of 1948 and 1949. Played against the backdrop of social upheaval, the characters in the drama come to epitomize the best and worst of each pole of the political sphere. A 17-year-old hoodlum by the name of Gladow (Ullrich Read More

Berlin Chamissoplatz

Actors: Hanns Zischler, Alexander Malkowsky

Synopsis: This love story that uses Chamissoplatz Square as the substance of its plot development, contrasts with the documentary on the housing crisis embodied by Chamissoplatz Square: Und Wenn Wir Nicht Wollen (...And If We Don't Want To...), directed by Udo Radek and released slightly earlier in 1981. Read More

Total Vereist

Actors: Rio Reiser, Juergen von Alten

Synopsis: This low-budget, off-the-wall comedy by Hans Noever relies on improvisation for some of its 80-minute running time, and on a screwball group of characters. A film crew is housed in a Berlin mansion to work on a project, and during their stay the owner of the villa dies while sitting on the Read More

David

Actors: Walter Taub, Irene Vrkijan, Eva Mattes, Mario Fischel, Dominique Horwitz

Synopsis: David (Mario Fische) is the son of a German rabbi during the early days of the Holocaust. The boy is a horrified witness to the burning of his father's synagogue and the humiliation of his relatives and neighbors. Breaking away from his family, David is able to earn enough money to emigrate to Read More

Les Rendez-Vous D'Anna

Actors: Aurore Clément, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Lea Massari, Magali Noël, Helmut Griem

Synopsis: Anna (Aurore Clement) is a film director whose job takes her all over western Europe. In each place she either already has some intimate connection, or readily makes one. People seem drawn to her, but inevitably insist on sharing their inmost secrets and discontents with her, despite her obvious Read More

Die Linkshändige Frau

Actors: Edith Clever, Markus Muhleisen, Bruno Ganz, Michel Lonsdale, Angela Winkler, Gérard Depardieu

Synopsis: Mourning for a lost relationship can be every bit as devastating as mourning for someone who has died. In this drama based on the director's own novel, a couple with an unhappy marriage agree to a trial separation. They try to patch things up, and at the same time other relationships begin to Read More

Kings of the Road

Actors: Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Rudolf Schundler

Synopsis: Those even remotely familiar with the work of German director Wim Wenders should not be surprised that he has a title like Kings of the Road in his resumé. Rüdiger Vogler plays Bruno, an itinerant movie-projector repairman, who tools about the dusty roads along the East-West border of Germany in Read More

Summer in the City

Actors: Hanns Zischler

Same Player Shoots Again

Synopsis: An experimental short film from acclaimed director Wim Wenders, Same Player Shoots Again takes its cue from the game of pinball (players used to get five balls instead of three) and offers five different takes of a man running towards the camera with a gun. Each take is tinted in a different Read More