Film
JULY 2019: 10 Films for the Summer

10 Filme für den Sommer
© Fack Ju Göhte 2

Sunshine and watching movies are mutually exclusive? No way! Whether oppressive heat or summer thunderstorms: there is the right film for every ozone level. 

All films can be found in the library of the Goethe-Institut Hong Kong. 

1. Fack Ju Göhte 2
Director: Bora Dagtekin
115 min., 2015

Mr. Müller is not satisfied with his new work at the Goethe-Gesamtschule. Having to get up early and correcting exams annoys him. Director Gerster wants to improve the image of the school because she wants to be a symbol of the new public campaign. To achieve this, she wants to take away the partnership from the Schiller gymnasium with a school in Thailand. So Mr. Müller, Ms. Schnabelstedt and the 10/B class must go on a school trip to Thailand to a remote village.  

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueav4iE0gYI

2. Lola rennt (En: Run Lola Run)
Director: Tom Tykwer
82 min., 1998

Lola and Manni are lovers. Manni has completely botched up the handover of money when smuggling some cars. He is in despair and calls Lola. But how can she get 100,000 Bucks together in only 20 minutes to save her lover′s life? The situation seems hopeless. The clock starts ticking and Lola runs....

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-iocoDCqGQ

3. Die Wolke (En: The Cloud)
Director: Gregor Schnitzler
105 min., 2006

Just as Hannah and Elmar are kissing each other for the first time at school, the alarm siren screams. There has been a breakdown in a nuclear power plant and an unstoppable deadly cloud is spreading. Chaos and panic are raging. The two are separated on the run. Thousands die immediately, thousands are contaminated, including Hannah. But Elmar doesn't give up, he looks for Hannah until he finds her again in a hospital. Against all reason, an intimate love with uncertain outcome begins.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCzrOI8o_Is

4. Die geliebten Schwestern (En: Beloved Sisters)
Director: Dani Levy
171 min., 2014

The aristocratic sisters Charlotte and Caroline both fall in love with the controversial young writer and hothead Friedrich Schiller. A love triangle forms between Schiller and the two sisters – one would become his wife, and the other, his biographer.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDVJwzrUxos

5. Blöde Mütze! (En: Silly’s Sweet Summer)
Director: Johannes Schmid
95 min., 2007

Until he moved to the small town of Bellbach, 12-year-old Martin’s life seemed to be okay. But then suddenly he is confronted with an unexpected reality: His first love and Oliver’s fist. Pretty complicated! But Martin fights for what he belileves in: for Silke and against Oliver, and finally for the friendship of both.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2QQTM37Ss

6. Ostwind (En: Windstorm)
Director: Katja von Garnier
105 min., 2013

Mika has to spend her summer at the horse farm of her strict grandmother. She is not a real horse-fan, till she meets the wild stallion Ostwind. Through her special friendship with this horse, she discovers that she is a real horse whisperer.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P5XMocAE2o

7. Sommerhäuser (En: Summer Houses)
Director: Sonja Maria Kröner
93 min., 2017

1976, the height of summer. A heat wave. Everybody is sweating. A German family is spending the dog days in their communal garden – just as they always do. Yet the passing of their overbearing matriarch Sophie reveals fine cracks in the family’s relationships while subtly changing how they interact. While the adults argue about the sale of the property, the children are free to roam the garden and the neighborhood. Suddenly the news of the disappearance of a little girl disrupts the placid summer idyll…

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60fZaf5Nuo

8. Königin von Niendorf (En: Queen of Niendorf)
Director: Joya Thome
65 min., 2017

Ten-year-old Lea is not going on her annual camping trip with her friends this summer. She stays at home and rides her bike through the village Niendorf all by herself. One day, as she rambles through the village, she observes five boys lifting a large blue oil barrel over the fence of a paint factory and carrying away their loot on a bicycle trailer. She follows them and discovers that they are building a raft on a small lake. Lea takes them up on a dare in order to join the gang. From then on, summer seems to be full of adventures…

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uVYUJuB-xc

9. Westwind 
Director: Robert Thalheim
90 min., 2008

Summer 1988: The twins Isa and Doreen, promising young athletes of the GDR, are allowed to attend a training camp at Lake Balaton in Hungary. There they get to know the two Hamburg boys Arne and Nico. What begins as a holiday flirt develops into a serious love for Doreen and Arne, for whom the girl from the Saxon province risks everything - namely fleeing to the West. A teenage love story that comes across easily and cheerfully despite the political background is also staged with the knowledge of today: A good year later the wall fell, after which the crime of "fleeing the republic" no longer existed.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTUe8WfKXTE

10. Alle Anderen (En: Everyone Else)
Director: Maren Ade
124 min., 2009

Chris and Gitti are a couple whose relationship has more than its share of ups and downs; she works as a publicist for a rock group whose career is going nowhere in particular, while he's an architect who hasn't been able to persuade anyone to build one of his designs just yet. While on a Mediterranean vacation, they find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.

Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjQ4T_1Zw-g

All films are available for loan at the Library of Goethe-Institut Hongkong.