Germany 2026
Opening March 26, 2026

Directed by: Sven Unterwaldt
Writing credits: Claudius Pläging
Principal actors: Hape Kerkeling, Tahnee Schaffarczyk, Laura Thomas, Meltem Kaptan, Jördis Triebel

Horst Schlämmer (Hape Kerkeling) is assistant editor of the newspaper Grevenbroicher Tagblatt. He realizes that life isn’t always so wonderful and decides to travel throughout Germany and help people find their lost smiles. He is accompanied by Anna, who films his activity. Anyone passing by gets the question: What makes you happy? He travels in the direction of Bad Lobenstein, Thüringen, München, Sylt, Berlin, Büsum, Dresden, Hamburg, i.e., throughout all of Germany. First by car, but along the way, he is stopped by the police and loses his driver’s license. This forces him to hop onto the bus, and later the train.  Here he becomes acquainted with bus-driver Roswitha (Jördis Triebel), as well as train conductor Mandy (Meltam Kaptan). He meets up with Hape Kerkeling who tells Horst about the book he has just published Glück kennt keine Grenzen (Happiness has no limits). In one instance, he is dragged out of a car by five guys who question him, and then they sing together. What responsibility does a mobile phone have for happiness?

The title translates to “Horst Schlämmer is Looking for Happiness.” A young woman Gaby Wempel (Tahnee Schaffarczyk) pops up in various places. When he lands on the island of Sylt he says, “I feel like Columbus in the USA.” This refers to Christopher Columbus who came to the Americas in 1492, having no clue where he was and why he was there. In this wonderful film with excellent actors, we need to understand German well, as it is spoken in German with a slight Thüringen accent from the central part of Germany. We never see the camera woman  Anna (Laura Thomas), although she accompanies Horst and converses with him for the entire ninety-six minutes. Hape Kerkeling plays Horst, who meets the “real” Kerkeling, i.e., we have Hape Kerkeling talking to himself on screen in a double role.  Popular songs are “Irgendwo auf der Welt gibt’s ein kleines bißchen Glück” (Somewhere in the world there is a little bit of happiness) and “Blikkendag.” The original Horst Schlämmer film Isch kandidiere! showed in 2009, also staring Hape Kerkeling.   (Becky T.)