Hexe Lilli rettet Weihnachten (2017)

In her third cinematic adventure, the young witch Lilli is annoyed by her little brother Leon, who is always the center of attention. Because of his allergy, she cannot have a rabbit as a pet, and he also damages Lilli’s new telescope, which Santa Claus had only just brought her. Despite the warnings of the magic dragon Hektor, she uses a spell from her spellbook to summon Knecht Ruprecht and teach Leon a lesson. The spell works, but Knecht Ruprecht runs amok in the modern world. Among other things, he makes one of Lilli’s teachers disappear, and he gradually turns back into the underworld creature he was before he met Santa Claus, who calmed him down. The only one who seems able to help in this situation is Santa Claus himself, so Lilli sets out to find him. She travels through time with her classmate Layla, using the witches’ leap to send herself and Layla back to Ruprecht’s time. Lilli always needs an object from the destination in order to make the leap. To get to Ruprecht’s time, she uses a piece of fabric from his sleeve; for the return trip, she packs one of the candles from the Advent wreath in her backpack. Meanwhile, Ruprecht continues to wreak havoc in Lilli’s town and puts Christmas in danger. Lilli tries to make up for her mistake and save Christmas. When they arrive in Ruprecht’s time, Lilli and Layla end up in the dungeon where Ruprecht had been imprisoned before Lilli summoned him. They use the candle Lilli brought for the return trip to light the dungeon and realize they can climb out with the help of a Christmas tree. They cannot use magic to get out, because Lilli does not have a suitable spell for that. After freeing herself and then Layla from the dungeon, Lilli goes with her to see the lord of the house, Count Tetrich. He tells them that he has banned Christmas in his realm because his parents died at Christmas three years earlier, and since then he has always been so lonely at Christmas that he hates it. Since Tetrich intends to lock Lilli and Layla back in the dungeon, they escape using the witches’ leap and the Advent-wreath candle to return to their own time, arriving back in the school theater hall. But when they get there, they realize that it is no longer December 8, the day they made the leap to Ruprecht’s time from the theater hall, but Christmas Eve. The reason for this huge jump in time is that the candle Lilli lit in the dungeon was the fourth candle of the Advent wreath, which would not be lit until the fourth Sunday of Advent; since it had already burned, it could only take Lilli to a time after the fourth Sunday of Advent. In addition, there are pictures of missing children everywhere, leading Lilli to conclude that Ruprecht has snatched them all. Lilli and Layla hurry to Lilli’s house, where Lilli discovers that she and Leon have also already been reported missing, and concludes that Ruprecht has snatched Leon too. Then Hektor greets Lilli and gives her a letter from Santa Claus saying that he will come to the Christmas-market performance. Lilli and Layla have to hurry, since they have only 12 minutes until then, but they also consider what to do if Santa Claus is late. Then Lilli gets the idea of using the great time spell. They quickly hurry to the Christmas market. While the school principal is giving a eulogy there, Knecht Ruprecht appears, angry that he has not found Santa Claus anywhere. He accuses everyone of claiming that Santa Claus does not exist and threatens to punish them all. Lilli and Layla step in. Ruprecht is just about to put them in his sack when Lilli freezes the whole world with the great time spell, including Ruprecht’s sack, so he cannot put them in it. Lilli grabs Ruprecht’s sack and flees across the Christmas market with Layla and Hektor. After a while, Ruprecht catches up with Lilli and Layla, but at that moment a blue shooting star appears in the sky, and Lilli, Layla, and Ruprecht know: Santa Claus is coming now. Ruprecht is appeased, takes his sack, and follows his master. After a while, everyone Ruprecht had previously put in his sack is magically transported to the Christmas market. All the children appear onstage in their costumes, and Lilli and Layla are also magically dressed in theirs: Lilli as Ruprecht and Layla as Santa Claus. Now everything is back to normal. However, Lilli has to undo the great time spell and give Layla a kiss of forgetfulness, because Layla must not remember anything about the magical adventure with Knecht Ruprecht—and especially must not remember that Lilli is a witch. Before doing either, Lilli gives Layla a friendship bracelet. After Lilli has set time moving again and erased Layla’s memories of the adventure with Knecht Ruprecht, nobody but Lilli and Hektor knows what happened, as if Ruprecht had never been in their time at all. Instead, everyone applauds the successful play. Lilli explains Layla’s memory gap—since Layla experienced the adventure with Ruprecht alongside Lilli, she has no memory of the play, as she, like Lilli, did not actually take part in it, but at the same time Lilli’s kiss of forgetfulness has also erased her memory of the adventure with Ruprecht—by saying that Layla forgot how she got onstage because of stage fright, but managed everything anyway. After the play, everyone celebrates Christmas; even Layla’s parents celebrate with her, and of course Lilli’s family (her mother, Leon, and her grandmother) do too. Lilli gets a rabbit in a hutch in the garden. The film ends in Ruprecht’s time, in Tetrich’s realm, where it also began. At Tetrich’s table sit Count Tetrich, Ruprecht, and Santa Claus, along with Tetrich’s guards and other servants. They celebrate Christmas together with great joy.