Insel des Lichts (2008)

Nora Bernd has hosted her successful television show, Nora Bernd Live, for ten years, offering people psychological support and advice in difficult situations. Her husband and daughter are also in the studio for the anniversary episode. Nora advises a young couple in which the woman is having an affair, and her daughter Jenny leaves the studio in disgust as Nora gives them relationship advice. For the anniversary, Nora is also invited to the talk show of the respected host Mankopf, and she accepts. The announced surprise guest is her daughter Jenny. Live on camera, Jenny says that the family has been broken ever since Nora had an affair with another man, and that for years the family has had to lie in public to protect Nora’s career. Nora flees the studio. Her employer advises her to take an extended vacation and cancels her show. Nora drives to the island of Rügen, where she grew up and owns a house. She also knows that her aunt Lottie and her sick nephew Erich live there, and she trusts them. On the way, she thinks about her family and becomes so distraught that she crashes into a tree. She is taken to hospital with injuries, where she is treated by Dr. Leonhard, whom she knows. In the meantime, Jenny’s hatred of her mother has not subsided. A tabloid reporter offers her the chance to write a three-part exposé about her mother, and she agrees. When she sees on television that her mother has been taken to hospital, she drives to Rügen and visits her there. At Nora’s request, Jenny smuggles her mother out of the hospital, and the two move into the seaside house where Nora grew up and where Jenny also spent her childhood. At first, there is a great distance between mother and daughter. Aunt Lottie picks Nora up, and Nora spends a day with the seriously ill Erich. He will soon die of a brain tumor, but takes it in stride, since his partner died of AIDS before him. Erich’s brother Jan has also come to Rügen to be with him in his final days. Jan and Jenny were once a couple, before Jenny left him. Erich and Nora resolve to bring them together again. Indeed, Jenny and Jan grow close once more, and the relationship between Nora and Jenny also changes: Jenny learns from her father that he repeatedly cheated on Nora and also beat her. Nora then left the family, and 13-year-old Jenny grew up with her father, who turned her against her own mother. Nora knows that someone in her circle is writing an exposé about her. At some point, Jenny gives Nora the words she wrote in anger, but Nora now insists that the story be published. She now knows that Nora Bernd was only a character she had created. She calls the investigative journalist and promises her an exclusive interview. She also hints that she has a new man in her life: Dr. Leonhard. Jenny and Jan are a couple too. Shortly before Erich dies, he wishes for them to conceive a child. And indeed, at her wedding to Jan, Jenny announces to her mother that she is pregnant. At the wedding, Nora appears publicly at Dr. Leonhard’s side for the first time, in front of the press, which has long since welcomed her back with open arms. However, she does not know whether she is ready to become a grandmother yet.