Who comforts little Laura? Of course: a small, shining star that ends up on our earth. Director Joya Thome presents a new version of “Laura’s Star” suitable for festive days.
Berlin – Advent time is children’s movie time. What could be nicer than taking refuge with the family in the cinema to immerse yourself in magical worlds shining down from the screen?
Some family pieces are just coming out again, including “Clifford – The Big Red Dog”, “Addams Family 2” or “Elise and the forgotten Christmas”. This is now joined by the adaptation of a children’s book hit: 25 years ago, Klaus Baumgart’s “Lauras Stern” was published. The series has been translated into over 20 languages. There is a TV series and an animated cinema adaptation from 2004.
Now a version with real actors is coming to the cinema. It’s about little Laura, her even smaller brother, about a shining visitor from heaven and about moving from the country to the city. Emilia Kowalski slips into the role of Laura, at her side are actors like Ludwig Trepte and Luise Heyer. “Laura’s Stern” is directed by Joya Thome (“Queen of Niendorf”).
The star becomes her friend
Laura pulls quite a curse. She wants to go back to nature, back to her beloved home. “My apple tree is gone and my friends!” The new apartment on the fourth floor of a city apartment building is nicely and comfortably furnished, but Laura is sure: “I’ll be leaving here tomorrow anyway”. An extraterrestrial visitor anticipates this – a mini-star that somehow ended up on our planet. Laura treats his broken point in a touching way. The plaster works wonders, suddenly Laura is not only holding a luminous celestial body in her hands. No from now on has a friend at her side who has magical abilities. With that she can now master one or the other challenge.
The ingredients that make up this children’s film are common to the genre: talking cuddly toys, children who feel uncomfortable in a new environment, understanding parents who still live in their own world, a fairytale visit from another world and a wonderfully colorful one, from green grass to sky blue Color palette ranging in star yellow. The flanking sounds from the cinema music legend Hans Zimmer (“The Lion King”, “Dune”) do the rest. And the title song sung by Milow also fits in well with the coherent overall concept of the film adaptation, which is wonderfully suitable for the pre-Christmas period.
Sometimes children’s films are a little too long. “Lauras Stern”, on the other hand, has a length of 79 minutes that suits the attention span of small moviegoers. The animated parts of the film harmonize with the real film images, Emilia Kowalski plays reduced and yet engaging, her film brother (Michel Koch) is a veritable gold piece. The film appeals to one another more than once. So when Laura encourages her cuddly toys “We all have to stick together”. At this point, at the latest, some dads and mothers in the cinema should think about the pandemic. Is there a nicer message these days? “Can stars be sad?” Laura asks her parents at the dining table. The wonderful film has a clear answer to this: And whether they can. dpa
