Distant Lights (2003 film)

Plot

• Kolya, a Ukrainian, has paid to be smuggled into Germany illegally; he finds he has been left on the Polish side of the border. When he is caught, a German interpreter agrees to smuggle him herself; he reaches Berlin.
• Ingo, a German mattress salesman, finds business in Frankfurt to be minimal and the people self-interested. He is humiliated and becomes desperate, but may have found love in Simone.
• Antoni, a Polish taxi driver, struggles to find the money to buy a communion dress for his daughter. By the time he is able to afford it, he is too late.
• Philip, a young German architect, runs into his Polish former girlfriend Beata while working on a building project in Słubice. Neither the romance nor the project works out.
• Anna and Dimitri, a young Ukrainian couple, are swindled out of their money and try with Antoni's help to cross the river Oder, almost drowning in the attempt.
• Andreas, a young German orphan who smuggles cigarettes, attempts to take the money and run away with a girl from the children's home.

  Cast

• Ivan Shvedoff as Kolya
• Devid Striesow as Ingo
• August Diehl as Philip
• Julia Krynke as Beata
• Alice Dwyer as Katharina
• Zbigniew Zamachowski as Antoni
• Maria Simon as Sonja
• Michael Gerber as Rainer Petzold
• Herbert Knaup as Klaus Fengler
• Henry Hübchen as Werner Wilke
• Anna Fischer as girl in the youth home
• Sergey Frolov as Dmitry

  Reception

• The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2003 Berlinale
• 2003 Findling Award
• 2002 Bundesfilmpreis in silver
• Best Direction, Best Script, 2003 Bavarian Film Prize