Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

Directed by German acting star Til Schweiger, Head Full of Honey is the story of a very special love between Tilda and her grandfather Amandus. Amandus, the strong, lively head of the family, starts to show signs of a disease that Tilda, at first, cannot understand: Grandpa is acting childlike and irresponsible.

Her father Niko had moved Amandus into the house after the death of his wife, Tilda’s grandmother, because Amandus was not capable of living by himself and handling the household. Niko’s wife Sarah is vehemently against this new living situation and it appears that the already fragile marriage cannot withstand more pressure. Amandus is getting more and more forgetful and unpredictable. He crashes the car and almost burns the house down, and even Niko has to admit that this living arrangement is not working: Because – as her parents explain to Tilda – Grandpa has Alzheimers.

Just as he has made himself comfortable in a room in their house, they want to uproot his life again and move him into a senior citizen home. Tilda will have none of it, though. Because she seems to be the only one who can handle him, she sees his disease through the eyes of an 11-year-old and can take his shenanigans with the kind of humor that only a child is capable of without ever losing track of the fact that he is sick and needs care.

The adventure really starts when Tilda decides to make one of Amandus’ biggest and last wishes come true: to once more see Venice. And so the road trip begins. The 11-year-old girl starts traveling to Italy with the 70-year-old Alzheimer patient. Without telling her parents …

Head Full of Honey was one of the eight German films waitlisted for Academy Award submission (it lost out to Labyrinth of Lies). Directed by Til Schweiger, who also plays Niko, it stars famous German comedian Dieter Hallervorden as the grandfather and Emma Schweiger, Til’s own daughter, as Tilda. The film, which premiered in Germany last Christmas, was a huge box office success and has made over 60 million dollars.

Elisabeth Sereda