The 2014 film is the first in a series of four musical-style films dating through 2017. All are part of the Bibi Blocksberg storylines, but take place when Bibi is a teenager. This post will cover all four films.
Bibi is played by Lina Larissa Strahl. She is doing some work in music as well, and has a small collection of songs on Spotify, with more available – including songs from this film – on Apple Music.
Tina is played by Lisa-Maria Koroll. She took part in Lina’s music video for Egoist. Her first acting work were these four films, but she seems to keep fairly busy with the career!
An antagonist of the first film is Sophia von Gelenberg, played by Ruby O. Fee. She has already led quite an interesting life. She was born in Costa Rica to a German mother, raised in Brazil, and moved to Germany at 10 years old. She has taken part in a few movies every release year recently, including the acclaimed film Die Unsichtbaren.
Charly Hübner plays another antagonist in the films, Herr Kakmann. He’s been a regular especially in the comedy realm of German film and TV since 2003. He had a role in Das Leben der Anderen, 1 1/2 Ritter, and The Countess among many other films and TV series.
Former guitarist from the band Fertig, Los! Raphael Dwinger plays Onkel Archie, visiting from America. Fun fact, Dwinger is German American!
Matthias Schweighöfer pops in for a costume party in the second film – he makes a great Prince Charming!
The first film explicitly discusses differences of classes and the differing opinions of that between the generations. The second continues this theme including a family whose parents are nowhere to be found and others make assumptions about them.
The third film focuses more on gender stereotypes and navigating those expectations as teenagers. There is some “sexual aggression” (a boy kisses a girl without her consent) and his friends tell him how wrong that is and try to explain why. This is resolved in a mature way later in the film.
The third film (Mädchen gegen Jungs) has a couple jokes that may not be appropriate in all educational settings. The French student makes a comment that implies a different kind of threesome than the activity would call for. There is also an accidental drug scene, when a boy eats wild mushrooms. They all refer to it as “poisoning” but the scene is showing him looking and acting high.
The fourth film has a thinly-veiled hit at Trump with “Trumpf Wall,” as an orange haired real estate tycoon talks about how he has a right to security. Minutes later, we are introduced to Syrian refugees hiding in a barn. Bibi and Tina talk amongst themselves as well as with the refugees about their concerns and worries, and why they left their home. This culture clash is a huge topic of the film and at times is exaggerated with stereotypes. There is some play with idioms that are linguistically interesting.