50 Years of SIFF: Run Lola Run
November 12 - 18, 2023
After a botched money delivery, Lola has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks.
An exhilarating blend of romance, thrills and action, Tom Tykwer’s latest work of brilliance utilizes multiple viewpoints and a domino effect to create different destinies, underscored with such devices as split screen, fast and slow motion, rapid montage, jump cuts, whip pans, still photographs and animation — whew! — in its headlong rush through the story of twenty minutes in the life of an exceptional screen heroine, the red-headed Lola of the title. The story is quite straightforward: Manni (Moritz Bleibtrau) and Lola (Franka Potente) are twenty-something Berliners, way past cool and desperately in love. When Manni, a local criminal’s errand boy, loses 100,000 Deutchmarks of his criminal boss’ money, he has twenty minutes to come up with the dough or face retaliation. Not the brightest bulb, Manni turns to the quick-witted, resourceful Lola to devise a plan to save his life. And so she does, running for Manni’s life, for her love, and to find money somewhere, somehow. Dangling three “what if” variations on Lola’s mission to save her mate, Run Lola Run propels us toward each outcome with a delicious peppering of surprises, quirks, and twists.
- Original Language Title: Lola rennt
- Director: Tom Tykwer
- Principal Cast: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Nina Petri, Joachim Król
- Country: Germany
- Year: 1998
- Running Time: 80 min.
- Producer: Stefan Arndt
- Screenplay: Tom Tykwer
- Cinematographers: Frank Griebe
- Editors: Mathilde Bonnefoy
- Music: Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil
- Filmography: A Hologram for the King (2016), Cloud Atlas (2012), 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero (2011), 3 (2010), The International (2009), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), Heaven (2002), The Princess and the Warrior (2000), Run Lola Rn (1998), Winter Sleepers (1997), Deadly Maria (1993)
- Language: German