Oh Boy

by Jan-Ole Gerster

Winner of six GERMAN ACADEMY AWARDS (including BEST FILM and BEST DIRECTOR)Niko lives for the moment, dreaming, drifting and marvelling until he's confronted by his girlfriend breaking up with him, his fathercutting off his allowance and a psychiatrist confirming his “emotional imbalance”. But all Niko wants is a decent cup of coffee.

Niko is in his late 20s and recently dropped out of college. He lives for the moment, drifting sleeplessly through the streets of Berlin, marvelling at the people around him. With a quiet curiosity, he observes how they cope with everyday life while failing to notice how he himself is becoming an outsider. But, one day, everything changes, and Niko is forced to confront the consequences of his inaction. His girlfriend ends their relationship, his father cuts off his allowance and a psychiatrist diagnoses him with an ‘emotional imbalance'. Meanwhile a peculiar beauty from his past confronts him with the emotional wounds he inflicted, his new neighbor – accompanied by meatballs and Schnapps – pours his heart out, and throughout the city there doesn‘t seem to be a single cup of ‚normal‘ coffee available.“Do you know the feeling when people around you seem to behave strangely? And the longer you think about it, the more it dawns on you that it's not other people who are strange, but yourself?” Niko's epiphany, however, is immediately, abruptly interrupted when he's forced to stand up to a rowdy gang of teenagers, and a night-time encounter with an old man not only personifies his own loneliness but also demonstrates how the city's history continues to assert itself.THE German Box Office surprise with more than $2mio. (released by X-Verleih)

Genre / Language / Length
Tragicomedy / German / 85 minutes
Original title
Oh Boy
directed by
Jan-Ole Gerster (OH BOY)
produced by
Schiwago Film in co-production with Chromosom Filmproduction, HR and ARTE
Cast
  • Tom Schilling (GENERATION WAR, OH BOY)
  • Friederike Kempter
  • Marc Hosemann
  • Katharina Schüttler (GENERATION WAR)
  • Justus von Dohnanyi (DOWNFALL)
  • Michael Gwisdek (GOODBYE, LENIN!)
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Press Quotes

A wry, unforced comedy. Inescapably brings to mind vintage Woody Allen. Tom Schilling is exceptionally appealing."
The Hollywood Reporter

"A crowd-pleaser. Poignant and funny. A love-letter to the city of Berlin."
Twitch Film

4 stars! A delightful discovery. Boasts a heart of gold and a suave, unassuming charm. Intelligent, witty and an awful lot of fun."
Cine-Vue

"4 Stars! The absurd, touching and melancholy wanderings of a young German through a Berlin would make Jim Jarmusch proud."
Screen Comment

4 stars! Highly recommended. An engaging and enjoyable German slacker comedy that marks out writer-director Jan-Ole Gerster as a future talent to watch."
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