Distant Lights

• Ivan Shvedoff: Kolya
• Anna Yanovskaya: Anna
• Sergei Frolov: Dimitri
• Sebastian Urzendowsky: Andreas
• Alice Dwyer: Katharina
• Martin Kiefer: Marko
• Tom Jahn: Maik
• Striesow: Ingo
• Claudia Geisler: Simone
• Zbigniew Zamachowski: Antoni
• Aleksandra Justa: Milena
• Marysia Zamachowska: Marysia
• Mary Simon, Sonja
• Janek Rieke: Christoph
• August Diehl: Philip
• Julia Krynke: Beata
• Herbert Knaup: Klaus
• Henry Hübchen: Wilke

Lights is the title of a German feature film by Hans-Christian Schmid in 2003, who was also participating in the official competition of the Berlinale 2003 in the same year.

Action

The film tells in a parallel mounting multiple, only loosely and sometimes not at all inter-related episodes. All play in the area of or directly in the German Frankfurt ( Oder) and the Polish Słubice, which are separated only by the Oder and the German -Polish border, multiple border crossing is discussed. The movie is quite true to life held, the stories reflect the everyday concerns, but also partly existential fears, of simple and realistic images of people resist that elude usually clear good and evil schemes. The episodes are as follows:

• The Ukrainian refugees - At the beginning of the film is a small group of Ukrainian refugees deducted from their captains in the forest near Słubice - they are told that they are only a few kilometers from Berlin befänden. While the young Kolya and his friends are trying to cross the border alone, Anna and Dimitri trust with her little child in a Polish taxi driver. Kolya is taken up by the German border troops and meets in detention at the young interpreter Sonja, just before he is deported back to Poland. These attempts with her boyfriend Christopher, Kolya rediscover in Słubice and drive across the border.
• Unemployment in Frankfurt / Oder - Ingo operates a mattress store shortly after the bankruptcy. He puts everything on one last promotion and committed, inter alia, the young unemployed Simone for this. The promotion fails and Ingo suffers after a setback after another, while Simone have to look at everything. However, Ingo is shortsighted in several respects and does not realize that Simone would also help him without pay.
• The cigarette smugglers - just outside of Frankfurt, the two young Marko and Andrew live in the junkyard of the petty criminals Mike. Marko smuggles along with his girlfriend Catherine cigarettes from Poland to Germany. When Catherine is taken into custody by the authorities, but Andreas is on his way to free them and to flee together with the proceeds from the smuggling. Marko and Mike, they resort to revenge, however, and - at first.
• The Polish taxi driver - Antoni tries desperately to earn money for the communion dress his daughter because his wife Milena was cheated by her boss Ingo to the last wage. However, when he does not succeed with regular work, he takes the Ukrainian refugees Anna and Dimitri to live with him and tried to bring it across the border.
• The planned factory - Philipp, a young architect, his former girlfriend Beata encountered in negotiation talks with Polish and German industrialists again, working as an interpreter. He wants to make friends with her ​​again, but he does not know that Beata with her friend Sonja works as a call girl - and that's why was committed by his boss Klaus for the evening negotiations.

Reviews

• Epd Film, August 2003: " Schmid considered all of his characters with a loving glance, just where they lose themselves hopeless. What the figures fail each other, he gives them. (...) A carefully balanced time frame between melodrama and social realism. The most poignant and important German film has long been " in the next edition of September 2003 Lights Film of the Month: " Schmid manages a political upheaval with the existential needs and experiences of individual to interweave people - without degrading their fates become mere Exempeln a historic moment ".
• Encyclopedia of the International film: "A brilliantly developed and staged inventory nationwide German reality. The proximity of the hand-held camera enables a sometimes painful immediacy, the film, despite its realism a fine balance between oppressive heaviness and lighter moments respects. "
• Cinema: " The laconic episodic drama is one of the best that the German film has to offer. "
• TV Today: " Schmid is a guarantee of first-class cinema. Short Cuts to the EU 's Eastern Border: A fast paced, moving drama. "

Awards

The film won the 2003 German Film Award in Silver and in 2004 the Guild Film Award in Silver. At the Berlinale 2003, he won the FIPRESCI Prize. He also won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Production and Best Screenplay. The cinematographer Bogumil Godfrejow was nominated for the European Film Awards. 2004 Lights was awarded the German Critics Prize. For Best Editing Hansjörg Weißbrich received both the Film average price and the price of the German Film Critics.