Cherry Blossoms - Hanami
Director Doris Dörrie
Germany 2007/08, 127 minutes

It is the story of a selfless love and a poetic journey into the heart of the human soul. Rudi and Trudi lead a peaceful but uneventful life in Allgäu, Bavaria. Their children have all left home and now live in Berlin, or even further afield in Japan. Only Trudi knows her husband Rudi is in the final stages of cancer. The doctor suggests they embark on one last adventure together and Trudi persuades her husband to go with her to Berlin to visit their children and grandchildren. When they arrive, however, they realize the young family is too caught up in its own existence to be concerned with reforging an intimate bond with them. After attending a Butoh dance performance, the couple decide it would be best to book into a hotel on the Baltic coast. Trudi suddenly dies there – Rudi loses his bearings and has no idea how to carry on.

How – everyone wonders – is the eccentric and far from independent Rudi, of all people, supposed to get by on his own? Which of the children should look after him in distant Bavaria? The widower himself also struggles to come to terms with his new situation – and is still unaware that he has very little time left to live. He is also plagued by guilt as he discovers how much of her own life Trudi sacrificed for him, how much she gave up. Not least her passion for Japanese Butoh dance, which she never pursued, for Rudi's sake above all else. Rudi eventually leaves for Japan to visit his son Karl. And there, of all places, surrounded by the foreigness he had always despised, he is able to rediscover an intimacy with his late wife…

Photo: Olga-Film Produktion


Entry: Free

Extra: Grilled Sausage (Bratwurst) and a Cash Bar with asorted cold drinks
Extra extra: playback list with selected music genres - choice of the day!

Remember: you can also meet interesting new people and old friends.

Karibu sana!