Whisky mit Wodka (2009)

Otto Kullberg is a famous actor who occasionally drinks too much. When he gets drunk during the shooting of his new 1920s film, “Tango for Three,” and falls in front of the camera, the production fears that his drinking problem could cause him to drop out altogether, especially since one of his films was once left unfinished for the same reason. So they hastily hire the younger actor Arno Runge, and, as a precaution, all the scenes are to be shot a second time with him. Kullberg has to hold his own in the role against Runge. His co-star in the “film within the film” is Bettina Moll, his former partner in real life. She is now the wife of the overwhelmed director, Martin Telleck. So Kullberg not only has to fight for his place in the film and engages in a battle of performances with Runge; things also get tangled up in real life. In a key scene, Telleck answers the question of what the film’s message is: “Perhaps there isn’t a message at all. You don’t make a film because you already know the answers, but to find something out. A film is a conjecture. It’s about finding ever-new images for things that keep happening again and again—the great phenomena: love, death, and the weather.”