Helmut Berger, My Mother and Me (2019) [N/A]
Featuring:
Helmut Berger, Bettina Vorndamme, Karla Vorndamme
Written by:
Valesca Peters
Directed by:
Valesca Peters
Release Date:
March 7, 2019
Original Title:
Helmut Berger, meine Mutter und ich
Alternate Titles:
Helmut Berger – Der Verdammte
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
3sat
Kobalt Productions
ORF
nordmedia
Production Countries:
Germany
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 82
My mother googles the film hero of her youth: Helmut Berger. She is shocked: only an addicted shadow of the former icon seems to be left. She decides to halt the obvious catastrophic decline of the once “most handsome man in the world”. As a consequence, this one-time god of the screen is suddenly sitting on my mother’s sofa in Nordsehl in Lower Saxony. And he stays put - for several months. While he trustingly rolls out his whole life before us, the dividing lines between film team, world star and family intermingle. This is a film about ageing, rising and falling - and about the fact that it is sometimes possible to regain an element of dignity in life.
It all started with a spontaneous Google research: What does Helmut Berger actually do? Bettina Vorndamme, the mother of director Valesca Peters, surfed the net one night after being separated from her partner and was downright shocked by what she was reading about the once "most beautiful man" of the 1960s and 1970s.
