Watch | 30. Jun 2020

My Little Sister - One Berlinale Movie, Two Great Actors

And one of them actually will get an award in one of the first award ceremony´s this year in Munich: As the movie "Schwesterlein" finally comes to a theater near you, please check again, what I had to say about it earlier this year:

When you live in Berlin, there comes the day, when you think, you had enough seen of Lars Eidinger: His glorious "Hamlet", his "Richard, III", at Western Berlin´s best Theater, Die Schaubühne. I also saw some more of his movies, national and international, his powerful play, the brilliant way of becoming the part he is performing.

Almost the same reasons will let you rave about Nina Hoss, like Eidinger a member of the prestigious cast of Schaubühne. ( The last play I saw was a very personal adaption of Didier Eribon´s bestselling novel "Returning To Reims" ) And like Eidinger - whom she first met at acting school when they both were teenagers - Nina Hoss carries complete movies with her presence, my personal favorites are "Barbara" and "Phoenix".

Now those two play siblings, twins actually, who saved each other´s lives when their egocentric parents left them to themselves too often, too long. Sven became a well known actor (also at Schaubühne, also playing "Hamlet"), Lisa, his three minutes younger sister, became a theatre dramaturge - a profession she left more or less behind when she got married and moved to Switzerland.

Or, more specifically, as we learn throughout the movie togther with her brother, when Sven is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Both their lives from then on depend on each other, Sven becomes the center of Lisa´s existence as well as she becomes his guardian angel, so close, so existentially dependent on his well being, she almost loses her children, her beloved husband, her work and her life.

To watch Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger play this deep crisis, the intimacy of their desperation, their never vain performances, leaves you agitated and disturbed - when I left the theater full of international movie critics, I realized, I maybe saw the winning performances of this Berlinale Festival.