Film Archive
Life Is All You Get (Leben ist eine Baustelle, Das)
In a huge city like Berlin you literally have to bump into your "big love" - or else it could be that your chance has forever passed. On his way to work at the slaughterhouse, Jan Nebel gets into a street fight. Before he really knows what is going on, he beats up two plainclothes police investigators and finds himself joined by Vera, a beautiful woman who turns out to be his dreamgirl. But their fortune is fragile: Jan is afraid of being HIV-infected, and Vera creeps out of his bed every night ... Just like the other leading characters in this film, Jan and Vera are looking for their own identity, for friendship, a piece of luck and for their "big love". Life Is All You Get is a sensitive and subtle, but also flashy and comical approach to people's lives in a changing city, focusing on their dreams, fears, and desires.
Wolfgang Becker was born in 1954 in Hemer/Westphalia and studied German, History and American Studies at the Free University in Berlin. He followed this with a job at a sound studio in 1980 and then began studies at the German Film & Television Academy (dffb). He started working as a freelance cameraman in 1983 and graduated from the dffb in 1986 with Butterflies (Schmetterlinge), which won the Student Academy Award in 1988, the Golden Leopard at Locarno and the Saarland Prime-Minister's Award at the 1988 Ophuels Festival Saarbruecken. He directed the Tatort-episode, Blutwurstwalzer, before making his second feature Children's Games (Kinderspiele, 1992), the documentary Celibidache (1992), and the Berlinale competition features Life is All You Get (Das Leben ist eine Baustelle, 1997), and Good Bye, Lenin! (2003).Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 1997
Director Wolfgang Becker
Screenplay Wolfgang Becker, Tom Tykwer
Director of Photography Martin Kukula
Editor Patricia Rommel
Music by Juergen Knieper
Producer Stefan Arndt
Production Company X Filme Creative Pool/Berlin, in co-production with ARTE/Strasbourg, WDR/Cologne
Principal Cast Meret Becker, Christiane Paul, Armin Rohde, Ricky Tomlinson, Juergen Vogel
Length 118 min, 3,247 m
Format 35 mm, color
Original Version German
Subtitled Versions English
Sound Technology Dolby SR
Festival Screenings Berlin 1997 (in competition), Valladolid 1997
Awards Special Mention Berlin 1997, 3 German Film Awards 1997 (Best Film, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actress), German Film Critics' Award 1997, Pilar Miró Award for Best New Director Valladolid 1997
German Distributor Senator Film Verleih/Berlin
World Sales
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