Released in 2004, this film began as a novella by Austrian author Adalbert Stifter in 1845. The story begins in a winter storm during the holidays. We learn the back story of two young adults, a man and a woman from villages on opposite sides of a mountain – how they met, fell in love, and, due to a Romeo and Juliet-like situation, how that love dissolved. The plot’s climax hits on Christmas when the children want to visit the other parent.
Katja Riemann is in this film, but her role is relatively small, as she’s in the “present” piece, and most of the interesting conversation comes from the history.
Riemann’s daughter, credited as Paula Riemann but now known as Paula Romy, got her start in this film. She does work in all aspects of film. As far as acting goes, she’s been in several films we may be familiar with: 2 wilden Hühner films as well as Coming In.
Dana Vavrova plays Susanne. Vavrova was born in Czechoslovakia, and died of cancer in Germany. She was active in both the German and Czech film cultures, with a resume including Harmonists and Amadeus.
François Göske may be of particular interest to some of our students – they may recognize him from Cro’s Traum video! He was born in France and has dual citizenship. He mostly works in TV and shorts currently. He was also in a remake of the 1959 film Die Brücke (the original of which has its own post, which may be found by using the search button at the top right corner), das fliegende Klassenzimmer, and Bibi Blocksberg.
Max Tidof, who plays the Pfarrer, keeps busy with a variety of genres. He was in Ostwind 2, Harmonists, and Der Experte, and mostly works in TV just now.
It’s a heart-warming story of bringing people together. In short, it’s the perfect family Christmas-time movie. There’s nothing questionable for the classroom. Because most of the interest comes with the conversations within the film (there’s not much action at all), I would recommend this for advanced groups. That being said, my German 1 voted for this last year and they were really into it!