Lippels Traum (2009)

Philipp, known as Lippel, lives with his single father, gourmet chef Otto Mattenheim. When Otto has to go to America for work for a while, the new housekeeper is supposed to look after Lippel. Mrs. Jakob is very strict and has little understanding of the boy. The next day, two new classmates from Turkey, Arslan and his sister Hamide, join Lippel’s class. At home, Lippel starts reading the fairy-tale book his father left him before his departure, but Mrs. Jakob takes it away from him. Inspired by what he has read, Lippel imagines himself at night in an oriental dream world: his father becomes a king, Arslan and Hamide become the king’s children, and Mrs. Jakob becomes the king’s evil sister-in-law. Through a plot, she manages to have the king banish his children from the city and send them into the desert. She secretly pays the guards to kill the prince and his sister, convinced that she will then become queen herself. Lippel saves the children from the guards and returns with them to the palace, where their aunt has already taken the throne. The rightful king is freed from the dungeon, and his sister-in-law is sent into the desert. In real life, too, everything turns out well: the two classmates help Lippel drive the nanny out of the house with the help of spiders and other creepy-crawlies she is afraid of. Mrs. Jakob had already begun hoping that Lippel’s father would marry her. Instead, he marries Serafina, his kind colleague from the restaurant, whom Lippel gets along with very well.