Tough twenty-one-year-old Jenny von Loeben (Hannah Herzsprung), once a child piano prodigy, brutally murdered a man when she was only a teenager and is now incarcerated in Mannheim Women’s Prison in Germany. Septuagenarian Traude Krüger (Monica Bleibtreu) has been teaching classical piano to prisoners at Mannheim for close on 60-years. Initially cautious and reluctant to take on her new volatile pupil, Traude changes her mind when she hears Jenny play. Her decision to enter her reluctant student into a prestigious piano contest sparks a chain of disastrous events, which form the core of this remarkable story. While you might think you have the lesbian plot line all figured out from this brief introduction, it is the fervent history, and explosive deep-rooted secrets, unpeeled layer by layer as the story progresses, that actually bind and unite these two women from different sides of the age spectrum together.

Uniting hip hop with Schumann, young with old, past with present, Four Minutes, director Chris Kraus’s second film, features breath-taking performances from its two principal leads, who have both won individual acting awards for their roles in the film. Remain in your seats for the spine-tingling four minute musical crescendo. In German with English subtitles.

Career Synopsis

Chris Kraus was born in Gottingen, Germany. He worked as a journalist and illustrator before attending the German Film and Television Academy where he now lectures. One of Germany’s most celebrated screenwriters his credits include The Einstein of Sex (1999), Shattered Glass (2002), and c(r)ook (2004).