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News archive

1999

8 November
According to amazon.com, the NTSC video and DVD (Code 1) of Run Lola Run will be released on 21 December. One thing to remember though is that the video has been priced as a rental video and therefore will be rather expensive during the first weeks of its release (83 to 98 dollars).

I completely redesigned and updated the shop page on which you can find links to online shops which sell videos, DVDs etc.

Minor bug fixes and changes on both the English and the German page.
25 October
It's time to catch up again:
According to the IMDb, Wintersleepers was released in Norway on 15 October.

Last week, Run Lola Run was released in Australia, the UK and Ireland.

*Phew*, the homepage has been redesigned (well, parts of it at least :-)) and is now working with frames, so your browsers have to be at least the 3.x versions (which I assume shouldn't be too much of a problem :-)).

Added two new pictures of Wintersleepers and a little portrait/review text in English by Film Unlimited on the occasion of the UK release of Lola.
13 October
On Tuesday, 18 October, at 0.20 am (that's Monday night or Tuesday morning :-)), Apropos Film, a film magazine on German tv channel ZDF, will show a report about Tom's new film Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Warrior And The Empress). Additionally, there will be a report about the new film Schlaraffenland with Franka Potente.
3 October
Pia informs us that Lola will be released in the UK on 22 October.

Updated the Lyrics page: thanks to Flynn, the lyrics of Supermarket have been improved, and I finally found the time to translate the lyrics of Wish (Komm zu mir) into English. Don't expect something very deep, though. ;-)

Also updated: the Links page with new links about Lola and Franka Potente.
23 September
Ok, everyone outside Europe who doesn't like PAL versions without subtitles :-), the countdown has begun:
  According to Sebastian's sources at dvdworld, the release date for the US video of Run Lola Run is scheduled for 7 December. And even the US DVD will be released just two weeks later on 21 December. So let's keep our fingers crossed that those dates are not postponed.

The English version of the Franka Potente Fanpage is now online as well.

Added a link to the shop page where you can find the US version of the Run Lola Run poster.

By the way, if you'd like to discuss Lola or any other film of Tom, you can write to me personally, of course, but how about also writing a few (or a lot of) lines about your topic in the Guestbook/Forum section of this site? :-) It is also meant for discussion, so maybe others will contribute to the discussion as well and you will get to hear other/different/more interesting opinions than just mine. ;-) For example, I think Toby Everett's comments could serve as a good starting-point.
15 September
Can we trust the IMDb again? Well, according to them, Wintersleepers will be released in Norway on 15 October.

One year (ahem, and one day) ago the unofficial Tom Tykwer Homepage went online! To honour this occasion, I finally found the time to write the second edition of my editorial. :-)

And thanks to Jason and Pia, the soundtrack list is finally complete.
11 September
Some of you may have read it in this news section a few days ago, others may have been surprised when checking out the IMDb:
  The news about Tom Tykwer directing the film Meg is a hoax. Reliable sources (YES!! God, I've been waiting for ages to use this expression myself! :-)) informed me that Tom is pretty busy with The Warrior And The Princess right now and will not direct the film Meg. I apologize that I fell for it at first, too.

Minor fixes in the FAQ, also added the question about what the cartoon character at the beginning of the First Run says.
6 September
According to the Irish Times, Run Lola Run will be released in Ireland on 22 October.
3 September
On Sunday, 5 September at 9.45 pm, German tv channel West 3 will show a report about the shooting of Tykwer's new film The Warrior And The Empress. The program will be rebroadcast the next morning at 4.55 am.
29 August
Unter den Palmen (directed by Miriam Kruishoop) will be the opening film at this year's Netherlands Film Festival (22 September - 1 October). Co-producers of this film are: Stefan Arndt and, yes, Tom Tykwer of X-Filme Creative Pool. A little detail that only the Dutch page reveals: Tykwer is also credited as additional dialogue adviser along with co-writer Peter van Vogelpoel. The film will officially open in the Netherlands on 11 November. Thanks to René Jonkers for the information.

The links page is now updated.

Just a quick reminder: for the time being, the Wintersleepers soundtrack unfortunately is no longer available.
14 August
Added an article from Austrian newspaper Oberösterreichische Nachrichten to the texts section (thanks to Angie for scanning and providing the article). It isn't neither very deep nor very coherent, but it gives some information about Tom's new film that is currently shot in Wuppertal, Germany: The Warrior And The Empress.
  Next to the article was a new picture of Tom and Franka which was added to the image section.

  Arne Merten found out that the team has 52 days to shoot the film and that it will cost roundabout 10 million Deutschmarks ( ca $6 million).

  And now to something completely different: Please please browse this site before sending me questions via email. While I really apprechiate any kind of input concerning questions, news, pictures, errors or improvement on the page or articles that do not appear on this site yet (after all, half of Lola's FAQ resulted from questions you sent in!), it gets a bit tiring to still answer questions like "Where can I find the lyrics of the soundtrack" or "How can I get a poster of the film".
  I apprechiate any extra input, of course. In fact, the overwhelming majority of all the feedback you've sent to me so far has been really nice, justified, helpful and friendly. :-) Thanks! So I guess all I'm saying is that there are some questions that can be answered by just checking out this site. ;-)
3 August
On 29 July Lola was released in Argentina.

A new feature for the navigation bar on the left: I decided to add a sitemap to make the navigation even easier. You can access it from every page on this site.

Added three more questions to Lola's FAQ about the songs not featured on the soundtrack, Lola's screaming and the mysterious person in the ambulance. :-)

Also new: Lola's multimedia section. 10 different clips with varying resolutions. Thanks to Edgar Flores for technical assistance. :-)

Most people in the Run Lola Run discussion area of Ain't-it-cool-news seem to be rather, well, cool :-) and friendly, but this dated stereotype about those weird Germans who allegedly still listen to David Hasselhoff (which they don't, and it were just the suburban bores with no musical taste anyway) appears rather amusing and odd to me.
27 July
Last weekend, Lola dropped out of the top 20 of the US Box Office.

But good news for those who are looking for the original German poster of Lola: On the shop page you can find a link where you can order it for approx $16 (p&p included). One of the accompanying images has been added to the image section. :-)
26 July
Sometimes the IMDb is quicker than you thought it was:
On 21 October Lola will be released in Australia.
But just sometimes: On 16 July already, Lola opened in Poland.


The latest edition of Premiere has an interview with Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente which, among the usual praise of Lola, also contains some strong comments from Tykwer about Berlin politician Eberhard Diepgen:

[Diepgen claims to be young and dynamic, but he is] 'really the most fucking stupid, boring, old-fashioned, conservative super-idiot. The last person we want to be identified with.'


The background for these statements is an advertising campaign by Diepgen back in January: The poster showed Diepgen, member of the Christian Democratic Union (the conservative party in Germany) with the motto 'Diepgen runs' in the well-known Lola style to show his dynamism to work for Berlin. Tykwer and X-Filme obtained a temporary injunction which said that the poster must not be displayed anywhere anymore.
Speaking of which: Diepgen of all people (again Lola-style!) was the one who presented the Award for Best Picture Of the Year to Tykwer at the German Film Awards in Berlin this year....


How much would you spend for a German non-subtitle PAL version of Run Lola Run?? :-)
At amazon.com you can get said item for $14 in the auction section. Bidding ends on 31 July. (Note: The seller is new and I haven't taken part in any auction at amazon.com so far, so I can't say anything about the reliability of said offer. Additionally, keep in mind that anything over $30 is a rip-off since you can get said tape for approx. $30 shipped to you from Germany).
23 July
Ta-daa! So here it is, at long last: version 2.1 of my humble little homepage. I hope the navigation bar on the left will improve the clarity of the site a bit since most of the links at the bottom of each page have vanished and you can access the respective parts of the homepage faster without having to click your way back to the main page all the time. By clicking the little image in the upper left corner you get back to this main page where, as usual, you will find the latest news.

But it is not just the outside that has changed, I worked a bit on the inside as well: I finally managed to (re-)write the intro and the biography is now available as well. The links page is now online as well, although it is still rather empty and still on my list of things to do.

Oh yes, Tom Tykwer *g*:
Within the last two weeks, Lola has gone from number 18 to 19 and last weekend to number 20 at the US box office, but on the other hand it is now shown in 99 cinemas across the country. I think the better opportunities to see the film are more important than a box office ranking, after all, being among the first twenty films as a foreign film with subtitles actually is a great success in itself.

Lola will be shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Saturday, 24 July at 3.00 pm (thanks to Peter Gatt for the information).
10 July
On 7 July Wintersleepers was released in France.

Lola will be released in Japan today.

During the last weeks, there has been a lot of promotion going on on the streets of Tokyo, Japan. At this link you can find out what it looks like when Japanese actors dye their hair Lola-red to promote Run Lola Run. Ok, I'd like to see Tom Hanks with "Lola hair" driving in the streets of Beverly Hills to promote this film soon, please. ;-)


On the other hand, it seems like the Americans don't need any additional promotion anymore:
The people at spielfilm.de wrote yesterday that Run Lola Run is becoming more and more successful in the US: After being released in just five theatres at the first weekend, the film still made it to number 38 of the US box office and became even more successful during the second weekend (+25%) to climb to number 21.

Last weekend, Run Lola Run was shown at 45 theatres and made $ 408,037 . So the film has made a total of $ 1,056,383 so far and is now at number 18 of the US Box Office! And we're talking about a German film with English subtitles here.

Statistics, anyone? :-) The average amount of money each copy of Lola made is ca. $ 11,067, which is more than the average of the current number 1 Wild Wild West ($ 10,907). Ok, silly statistics, but a funny result. :-)


Some new images on the homepage: the Japanese versions of the soundtrack and the film poster of Run Lola Run (thanks to Yayoi Furuta), and additional images from the film. Lola's images are now spread on four pages already...!

06 July
On 2 July Wintersleepers (yes, this time it isn't Lola :-)) was released in the UK. On 7 July it will open in France as well. Keep your fingers crossed that this one is more successful there than Lola...

At the Bavarian Fund for film and tv production, a very short text serves as a synopsis of Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Warrior And the Princess):

By causing an accident, Bodo endangers Sissi's life but also rescues her and disappears. Sissi wants to see him again and makes use of her power to stop time.


The theme of Time in Tom Tykwers work would be a good topic for a paper, don't you think? :-) But seriously, does this synopsis sound silly or really interesting? In any way, it won't be boring if it's Tykwer's project, so let's wait and see. Additionally, the synopses on that page all sound a bit weird, so this storyline may or may not say anything about the film's quality...
03 July
Yesterday, Run Lola Run was released in Sweden.

According to spielfilm.de, Lola got a very good start during its first weekend in the USA: The film was shown in only five theatres (four in New York and one in Los Angeles), nevertheless it brought in $ 92.488, which makes an average of $ 18.498 per copy and lifted the film up to number 38 of the US Box Office. :-)

By popular request, the Lola soundtrack page is now up and running. From there you can get to the Lola lyrics page which is also new.
26 June
The IMDb has announced 2 July as the release date for Lola in Sweden.

I finally managed to seperate the Images/Bilder section: the English and German sections can now be accessed from their respective main pages, and the Wintersleepers images pages have been reorganized as well.

Additionally, three new pictures from Wintersleepers have joined the images section.
22 June
And again it's the IMDb which keeps us up to date: On 10 July Lola will be released in Japan.

Ahem... It was bound to happen some time...: Wintersleepers actually was shown at the Sydney Film Festival, but that was last year already... This is what happens when you hear news for the first time right after New Year's Day and mix up the years... :-)

On the homepage, another question has been added to Lola's FAQ eng which points out where the opening quote by T.S. Eliot is from.
18 June
These are pretty busy days!:

At long last, Run Lola Run will be released in the USA (New York and Los Angeles) today.

More film awards anyone?
Yesterday evening the winners of the German Film Awards 1999 were announced... Lola won eight awards!!:

Phew ! :-)

If you would like to take a look at the whole spectacle yourself, you can tune in to Pro Sieben tonight (Friday, 18 June) at 9.15 p.m. But be alarmed, figure skater Katharina Witt and comedian Piet Klocke will host!! ;-)
16 June
Just in time for the official US release, most of the English pages about Run Lola Run eng have been finished.

This includes the Run Lola Run FAQ eng, which contains some explanations of specific references to contemporary German pop culture in Lola.

Also new: The English page with links which show where to buy videos and CDs eng of Tom, the news of March/April have been moved to the News archive, and Lola's images now have English texts (although it admittedly doesn't matter that much on those pages :-))


But there's also news about Tom himself:
spielfilm.com informs us that Tom will finally start shooting his new film Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Warrior And the Princess) very soon in Wuppertal, Germany.
As expected, the film will star Franka Potente as welll as Benno Fürmann and Joachim Król. According to Tom the film will be a "big contemporary melodrama about love".
12 June
I have been rather busy in real life within the last weeks, which is why there hasn't changed that much on these pages, sorry everyone.
  I'm planning a redesign of this home page, but to avoid that the news have become completely outdated it's about time for a huge news update:

kress online reports that Lola won the Award of the Guild of German Cinematic Art Theatres, Zugvögel and Aimée und Jaguar both took second place.


On 4 June Lola was released in Denmark as well.


  Javier Sanchez informs us that the Seattle Internationale Film Festival closed last Sunday, 7 June. It is one of the most important festivals in the USA. 202 films were showed during the three weeks of the festival. On Friday night, Run Lola Run was shown to a full house. Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente presented the film and answered questions from the audience. On Saturday morning, Deadly Maria was shown as well, Tom introduced the film and left to catch the plane back to Berlin.

  By doing that, he missed the ceremonies for the Golden Space Needle Award. It is an audience award, and this year Run Lola Run was awarded the award for best picture! Tom also got second place for best director. Additionally, he received the Emerging Masters Showcase Award (along with Michael Winterbottom, Francois Ozon and Dorota Kedziersawka), which is an award for the "promising new filmmakers generation", as it were. :-)

  And finally, there is the Fool-Serious group. This is a club of movie maniacs who buy a full-series pass for the whole festival. This group independently votes for the best film of the festival, ie this is not an "official award". The group's vote usually never matches with the Golden Space Needle Awards, but this year, Lola won in this category as well.
30 May
On Monday night (31 May 1999) at 0.15 am (which is basically Tuesday morning :-)), the German tv channel ZDF will show Tom Tykwer's first feature film Die tödliche Maria (Deadly Maria) !
20 May
On Friday, 21 May 1999 at 8.45 p.m., Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (Life Is All You Get) will be shown on German-French tv channel Arte. The rerun is scheduled for Saturday night at 0.50 a.m.
13 May
According to spielfilm.com the Guild of German Cinematic Art Theatres, "Gilde", has announced its nominations for the 23rd Gilde Film Awards. There are two categories: best international film and best German film. In the latter, Lola is nominated among Bin ich schön? (Am I Beautiful?), Zugvögel - Einmal nach Inari (Train Birds aka Trains 'n' Roses), 23 and Aimée und Jaguar (Aimée and Jaguar).
The winners will be honoured on 28 May in the Burg Theatre in Kleve.

A note from spielfilm.de informs us that the 49th German Film Award on 17 June at the Berliner Staatsoper "Unter den Linden" will not be broadcast live. There will be a special report on 18 June at 9.45 pm on the German tv channel Pro Sieben instead.
6 May
Run Lola Run (German version) is now available on video.

So far, so good. But when it comes to Wintersleepers, things become weird: On the one hand it isn't available anywhere on the net (yet), which was even confirmed by jpc via email last week. On the other hand I own a copy of it as of yesterday (you guessed it, the German version as well), thanks to Saturn Hansa. :-)

VPS Video is the distributor of both films which actually are available now, even though it seems the net cannot keep up with the facts yet... :-)
22 April
*mental note* "Check IMDb more often, check IMDb more often...": Just like in France, Run Lola Run was released in Belgium on 7 April, and on 12 April it opened in Estonia.

The release date for Lola in Denmark is scheduled for 4 June this year.

The release of the Wintersleepers DVD (Regional Code 2) was announced for April as well, but it isn't available yet.
18 April
Lola is running... out of breath in France: According to ebiz, the film opened more than a week ago, but attracted just 13,700 viewers in the Paris area, though it was started in 29 theaters... Additionally, it was pretty much cold-shouldered by the French press. *gulp*

There are more pleasant news concerning this site: I finally added the editorial, in which I'll write down my personal thoughts about anything that is connected to Tom Tykwer and his work.
9 April
I have to rely on the IMDb again which tells us that Life Is All You Get opens in Denmark today.

And on the German Film Award 1999: The winners will be announced on 17 June in Berlin.
7 April
Time to catch up again:
According to the IMDb, Run Lola Run will open in France today, and the release date for Lola in Belgium is announced to be in April as well. In Switzerland (french speaking region) the film opened about a week ago (31 March).

Who would've thought I bought such a rarity like that CD a year ago....:
According to an email by jpc, the soundtrack of Wintersleepers  is no longer available. It has been taken off BMG's list. So there's just the hope that along the film's rerelease in Europe the soundtrack will be produced again as well.

And another drop of bitterness for the non-German speaking fans of Tom: The Run Lola Run DVD contains only the German version (and German subtitles for deaf persons), but not even English subtitles...! Can you believe it? Another beginners' course for international marketing, please. Who knows, maybe the international market can profit from the US theatre release in June...
27 March
Yes, that is a new logo up there. :-)

Run Lola Run is nominated for the German Film Award 1999 in four categories: Best film, best supporting actress (Nina Petri), best supporting actor (Herbert Knaup) and last, but not least, Tom himself for best director.

Speaking of which: Now that the rental video is available, the DVD (regional code 2) of Run Lola Run will be released in April.
Additionally to the film itself, it will contain interviews with Tom and the actors, a making of and the theatre trailer of the film.
21 March
According to ebiz, Run Lola Run will open in France on 7 April with 200 (!) copies.

Joep Vermaat and Tom Mes had the chance to talk to Tom at the Rotterdam Film Festival, their very detailed and informative interview with Tom eng can be found on the Project A pages.
13 March
Added the Contact page. It may seem a bit over the top (yet) (since it's still rather empty :-)), but a handful of people have already asked for ways of contacting Tom, and the addresses finally have their place on the home page.

I like intellectual talks, actually, but I started to doubt my own abilities when I came across this smashing Invitation eng to a discussion with Tom at the University of Hannover. Which is why I decided to translate it into English.... Enjoy!

Also new: Another little text, this time from the Toronto Star eng, yet again about last year's Toronto Film Festival with some mentions of Lola in it.
7 March
Andrea informs us that apart from Der Chef, Tom will be starting another project this year: His next film will be Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Warrior and the Empress), which seems to be the first of the previously announced co-productions of X-Filme Creative Pool with Miramax.
Is it really a surprise that Franka Potente will play the leading role? :-)
26 February
Lola runs on video!
Lola will be released as rental video in Germany on 15 March. There is no release date for the retail video yet, but at least German audiences can catch the film at their local video store. :-)
21 February
Again it's thanks to Yayoi Furuta that four new pictures of Tom can be found in the image section and he looks rather, uhm, exhausted on one of them... :-)

I modified the links to the other sections of this home page and the English film section has been updated as well.
14 February
Some of you may wonder what happened to the other Geocities address: I decided to move the entire English section to this address to make things easier for me. But thanks to the miracles of html programming you will be automatically transferred to this address when you access the "old" address. :-)

  A Thank you! goes out to Francesco Zambello, who got inspired by Lola to create this picture.

  Also new on this page: another summary-plus-review of Run Lola Run eng at the Toronto Film Festival last autumn.
12 February
Thanks to a malfunction of our university's server which didn't let me log in, this isn't exactly news anymore and most of you will know this by now, but anyway:
Lola is not among the final five nominations for the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film.
6 February
Lola wakes up the Winter Sleepers :
Run Lola Run is supposed to open in France with 150 copies in March.
Because of this success, distributors from Belgium, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Great Britain are now interested in Winter Sleepers as well. The film has already opened in the Netherlands in November 1998 and in Switzerland in January this year.
5 February
Time to catch up again: Berliner Morgenpost reports:
Tom has been awarded the Ernst-Lubitsch-Preis for Lola. With this award he is honoured for "best comedy performance in a German film". He will receive the prize in Berlin this week.
The Lubitsch-Prize is awarded every year by the German Association of Film Journalists in memory of German-American director Ernst Lubitsch (1892 - 1947, "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife", "To Be or Not To Be").
3 February
And yet another award for Tom: spielfilm.de reports: Along with "Train de Vie" by Radu Mihaileanu, Lola received the Audience Award for World Cinema at the Sundance Festival.

Winter Sleepers will be shown at the Sydney Film Festival this summer (4 - 18 June 1999).

Added links to the image gallery and the guestbook.
30 January
Added an interview with Tom deu about Winter Sleepers and a little text about Run Lola Run's appearance at the Toronto Film Festival eng in October 1998.

By the way, thanks to this text the English text section and the English sources section are officially open. :-)

Anyone for Japanese? :-) Thanks to Yayoi Furuta, here's a note about Lola in Japan. The film is due to open this summer over there.

According to the IMDb, there are some other new release dates for Lola in several countries:

Release dates for Run Lola Run:

25 January
Just in case you didn't know it yet, let us now sink to the depths of gossip: :-)
It is true that Tom Tykwer and Franka Potente actually paired off and both live in Berlin now (although in seperate flats. :-)).

New in the pictures section are one by the happy couple and three out of the film Run Lola Run.
23 January 1999
  So here it is: The English version of the Tom Tykwer Homepage!! (fireworks, cheers, happy people dancing in the streets.... hm, but probably not...)
  Anyways, hello English speaking world and welcome to the works of German director Tom Tykwer! :-)
  For the time being I thought translating the news section was the most important thing to do, the other sections of this homepage may follow some time soon. Enjoy!
  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, criticism or praise you'd like to tell me, feel free to send me a mail or sign my guestbook.

  To give you the opportunity to catch up with the latest news concerning Tom Tykwer, I have put up a page with facts about Tom's films, and another page which contains all the news and facts that have been mentioned in the German news section of this site so far.
  As of January 24 I will write the news in German (on the German page, duh! :-)) and in English on this page, so from now on you won't miss a thing anymore when it comes to Tom Tykwer. :-)
22 January 1999
A belated Happy New Year! :-)

Time to catch up again:
According to ebiz, Lola will be shown at the Gothenborg Film Festival (January 29 - February 1999).

X-Filme Creative Pool won the Producer Prize for Lola at the 20th Bavarian Film Awards.

Lola runs literally everywhere: More than 2 dozens of German tv reports have used parts of the "Run Lola Run" soundtrack so far, no matter what the report was about, the pumping beats of "Running I-III" are simply ubiquitous on German tv. :-)

Berlin politician Eberhard Diepgen is also running with the Lola hype. A poster shows him with the words "Diepgen rennt" to show his dynamism to work for Berlin, printed in the well-known Lola font....
Even the design of his homepage is "following" said design, to put it mildly.
But Kress informs us that Tykwer doesn't want to be used for political campaigns and has obtained a temporary injunction which says that the poster mustn't be displayed anywhere anymore. Diepgen's party, the Christian Democratic Union, now wants to appeal.

Even a tv commercial uses the Lola image, although the tv spot of the German mail order firm "Otto" is rather a third class copy and has its entertaining moments because of the unintentional humour that stems from it.

I hope you don't get the wrong impression here: It's not like Lola is the only thing the German public is talking about at the moment, but since I'm a fan of Tom Tykwer I guess I'm kind of trained to notice these little things. :-)

All I can say about Diepgen and Otto is that the mere use of an "in-image" doesn't always save the contents of the idea you're trying to promote. But, y'know, that's just my humble opinion... :-)