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Logline
ONE MAN’S HAPPINESS
The village is a place where everyone knows everyone else. Everybody is on a first-name basis. In the village, best friends meet up to play handball. In the village, a young couple is excited about moving into a new house. In the village, the local police officer is respected. In the village, hardly anyone can believe that he of all people could be responsible for such a shameful act. But indeed, Martin Manz has run over the daughter of his best friend, Frank, who plays handball with him and regularly repairs Frank's father's old television. Martin wants to do the right thing and help the family, but he also wants to cover up his drunk-driving episode so that his own happiness isn't ruined. To do all this, however, he must break the law one more time and then again and again.
Meet the director
Rainer Kaufmann
Rainer Kaufmann was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1959. He studied German and film in his home town before studying film direction at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film in Munich. In 1992, he directed DANN EBEN MIT GEWALT, which received several awards. He followed this up with STADTGESPRÄCH (1995), DIE APOTHEKERIN (1997), and LONG HELLO AND SHORT GOODBYE (1999), all of which were major commercial successes. Since then, he's been known mainly for television plays such as MARIAS LETZTE REISE (2004) — for which he was honored with the Adolf-Grimme-Preis, the Deutscher Fernsehpreis and the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis — as well as for motion pictures such as EIN FLIEHENDES PFERD. At the FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, his FÖHNLAGE received the Bernd Burgemeister Fernsehpreis in 2011. This year, he is represented with two works: SCHWARTZ & SCHWARTZ and ONE MAN´S HAPPINESS.