Synopsis

On the final day of Munich's Oktoberfest, a web of strangers, couples, families, tourists, workers, and police officers collide amid the festival's noise and spectacle. Marriages are tested, romantic impulses surface, family obligations become unavoidable, and a threatening incident revives memories of the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing. Told as an interwoven ensemble piece, the film follows these separate lives as they briefly converge before the fairgrounds fall quiet.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was produced in Germany in 2004 and 2005, with filming taking place in Munich from September 2004 through October 21, 2004.

• It premiered at the Munich Film Festival on June 27, 2005, before opening theatrically in Germany on September 1, 2005.

• The production was made by Hager Moss Film in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and ARTE, with support from German and Bavarian film-funding bodies.

• The movie was shot on 16mm and enlarged to 35mm for theatrical presentation. Filmportal lists its running time as 113 minutes, while some listings give it a 120-minute duration.

• The screenplay uses the Oktoberfest as a meeting point where several stories unfold simultaneously. The festival is less a conventional setting than the structure that connects the characters' brief encounters.

• The threatening subplot deliberately recalls the Oktoberfest bombing of September 26, 1980, one of Germany's most serious acts of domestic terrorism.

• The film received a 2006 Goldene Kamera award for Best German Actress for Barbara Rudnik.

• Filmportal records 15,220 theatrical admissions in Germany as of 2016.