Successful TV producer Rainer has it all: big salary, luxurious penthouse, high life, hot car, even hotter girlfriend. The 30-something go-getter has reached the top by creating TV shows of the most stupid and vulgar kind. In his latest hit, a man gets the privilege of fathering a woman’s child if his spermatozoid wins a microscopic race to fertilize an ovum! One day, mysterious young woman Pegah vengefully drives full speed into Rainer’s car. After this near-death experience, Rainer has a major change of heart and decides to produce a thought-provoking news show for his station’s prime-time lineup. Devastated by the show’s poor ratings, Rainer quits his job and embarks on an investigation of the audience measurement system that keeps intelligence-insulting programs at Number One. Teaming up with the beautiful Pegah and a gang of unemployed social misfits, Rainer sets out to prove that a conspiracy surrounds the boxes used in select households to estimate audience percentage. Determined to fight television’s dumbing down of society, Rainer and his new friends eventually go all the way with an intricate and ingenious plan to get the public interested in quality cultural programs. But the station execs who live off audience hunger for brainless TV are not willing to give up what they have ruthlessly built over the years …
Hans Weingartner strives for democracy as well as humour and positive thinking in his
filmmaking. His popular second feature, THE EDUKATORS, was a 2004 Cannes competition
entry and was later named Best First Feature by the German Film Critics Association.
Weingartner’s acclaimed 2001 debut, THE WHITE SOUND, won the prestigious
Max Ophüls Prize and was named Best First Feature by the German Film Critics, as well
as winning numerous awards for actor Daniel Brühl in the leading role as a young
schizophrenic.
Austrian-born Weingartner studied neuroscience at the University of Vienna and graduated
from the neurosurgical department at the University of Berlin’s Steglitz Clinic.
During his studies (1991– 97), Weingartner also began working as a camera assistant.
He did his post-graduate studies (1997–2001) in filmmaking at Cologne’s Academy of
Media Arts (KHM).
2007 RECLAIM YOUR BRAIN (Free Rainer) /// 2004 THE EDUKATORS (Die Fetten Jahre
Sind Vorbei) /// 2001 THE WHITE SOUND (Das Weisse Rauschen)
Rainer / MORITZ BLEIBTREU /// Pegah / ELSA SOPHIE GAMBARD /// Phillip / MILAN PESCHEL /// Maiwald / GREGOR BLOÉB /// Anna / SIMONE HANSELMANN
DIRECTOR / HANS WEINGARTNER /// SCRIPTWRITER / HANS WEINGARTNER, KATHARINA HELD /// PRODUCERS / HANS WEINGARTNER, ANTONIN SVOBODA /// CINEMATOGRAPHER / CHRISTINE A. MAIER /// EDITOR / ANDREAS WODRASCHKE /// PRODUCTION DESIGN / UDO KRAMER /// COMPOSER / ANDREAS WODRASCHKE, ADEM ILHAN /// A PRODUCTION OF / KAHUUNA FILMS /// IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH COOP99 /// FILMPRODUKTION SUPPORTED BY MEDIENBOARD BERLIN BRANDENBURG, BKM, ÖSTERREICHISCHES FILMINSTITUT, FILMFONDS WIEN, FFA IN COOPERATION WITH ORF (FILM/FERNSEHABKOMMEN)
FORMAT
35 mm / 1:1,85 / Colour / Dolby Digital /// LENGTH / 132 mins /// ORIGINAL LANGUAGE / German / SUBTITLES English
