Distant Lights

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, 2003, 105 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

The river Oder, running between Poland and Germany – for some the end of the world, for others the gate to a new existence. Like a magnet, it attracts people who yearn for a better life. This is the place where Ukrainian refugees seek a way to the “golden West”. But it is also the place where an unsuccessful businessman loses everything which was important to him, but then he finds something much more genuine. The place where a boy who makes a living smuggling cigarettes defies his father and brother and helps a girl escape from an institution for young offenders, because he loves her. The place where an interpreter risks her job in order that a confined illegal immigrant finds freedom. Small dramas are enacted each day at this crossroads between two worlds, small dramas about great things – freedom, liberation, hope, and also ordinary human solidarity and decency. The Poles and Germans seek a way not only to live alongside one another at this crossroads, but also to live as a community and, while many dreams and hopes remain unfulfilled, new dreams are born and sometimes a small miracle of humanity and solidarity is the reward.

About the director

Hans-Christian Schmid (b. 1965, Altötting), a writer-director, studied at the Munich Television and Film School, after which he was given a grant to study screenwriting at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1989 he made his first documentary Sekt oder Selters, which was awarded at the Independent Film Days in Osnabrück. This was followed by further documentary films: Das lachende Gewitter, Der Mechanik des Wunders, the television film Himmel und Hölle and his feature debut Nach fünf im Urwald (1996). He also wrote the script for the film Nur für eine Nacht, which won a number of prizes, as did the film 23. He also adapted the novel by Benjamin Lebert Crazy, for which he discovered two remarkable young talents: Robert Stadlober and Tom Schilling. He worked with Schilling once again for his next film Herz im Kopf, directed by Michael Gutmann, who co-wrote the film Distant Lights.