Film Archive

Distant Lights (Lichter)

To some it's the end of the world. To others, the gateway to a new life: the river Oder between Poland and Germany. Vibrant with expectancy, it's a magnet for people from all walks of life on their journey towards happiness, security, and a better life. It's a place where Ukrainian refugees beg and bargain for entry to the "golden West" and pin all their hopes on Polish help… A place where a hapless businessman loses everything he owns but gains something more important… Where a teen-aged cigarette smuggler defies his father and brother to free the girl he loves from a detention center… Where an interpreter risks her career and her freedom to help an illegal refugee… And where an architect meets his former girlfriend and discovers that they've both changed too much to find common ground for a new start. At this crossroads between two worlds, where the law of the land is that of self-preservation, men and women struggle to maintain their dignity and their values as they are stripped to the raw core of their existence. Yet even in this often hostile climate, love and compassion blossom in the most unexpected ways. And although some hopes and dreams are doomed, others come to pass with the quiet joy of a small and humble miracle.

With tender realism and humanity, Distant Lights captures the lives of people seeking their footing in a world of moral ambiguity.

Hans-Christian Schmid was born in Altoetting in 1965 and studied at the University of Television & Film in Munich. He made his directorial debut in 1989 with the documentary Sekt oder Selters followed by the short Das lachende Gewitter, the documentary The Mechanism of the Miracle (Die Mechanik des Wunders) and the TV film Himmel und Hoelle. His breakthrough came in 1995 with It's A Jungle Out There (Nach fuenf im Urwald). His other highly-acclaimed films include: 23 (1998), Crazy (2000), Distant Lights (Lichter, 2003), Requiem (2006), The Wondrous World of Laundry (Die wundersame Welt der Waschkraft, 2009), and Storm (Sturm, 2009).
 

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2003
Director Hans-Christian Schmid
Screenplay Michael Gutmann, Hans-Christian Schmid
Director of Photography Bogumil Godfrejów
Editor Hansjoerg Weissbrich
Music by The Notwist
Production Design Christian M. Goldbeck
Producers Daniel Blum (ZDF), Jakob Claussen, Uli Putz, Georg Steinert, Thomas Woebke
Production Company Claussen+Woebke+Putz Filmproduktion/Munich, in co-production with ARTE/Strasbourg, ZDF/Mainz
Principal Cast August Diehl, Maria Simon, Devid Striesow, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Zbigniew Zamachowski
Casting Simone Baer
Length 105 min, 2,884 m
Format 35 mm, color
Original Version German/Russian/Polish
Subtitled Versions English, Italian, French, Russian
Sound Technology Dolby SRD
Festival Screenings Berlin 2003 (in competition), Karlovy Vary 2003 (Horizons), Montreal 2003 (Cinema of Europe), Pusan 2003, Warsaw 2003 (opening film), Ghent/Flanders 2003 (in competition), London 2003, Tribeca 2003, Seattle 2003, Galway 2003, Melbourne 2003, Athens 2003, Haifa 2003, Sao Paulo 2003, Havana 2003, Manaki Brothers Camera Festival Macedonia 2003, Rotterdam 2004, Sevilla 2004
Awards FIPRESCI Award Berlin 2003, German Film Award 2003 (Silver), Bronze Camera 300 Macedonia 2003
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), BKM, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Filmstiftung NRW
German Distributor Prokino Filmverleih/Munich

World Sales
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