November (2005)

A would-be novelist with no ideas of his own mines the tragedies of an unsuspecting woman to his advantage in this drama. Robert (Ulrich Matthes) is a college professor and struggling writer living in Konstanz, a town in Southern Germany.

Robert has been working on a novel for years, but beyond a rough idea about life in Germany before the Berlin Wall came down, he has no worthwhile ideas and doesn't have much to show for his efforts; as Robert edges into his mid-forties, he's begun to worry his literary career will never get off the ground.

Robert happens to meet a young woman named Inga (Anna Maria Muehe) who was raised by her grandparents after her mother died soon after she was born; Robert senses there's something in her story that would make for a good novel, and he begins drawing her out, trying to find out more about her and her childhood that he can use as source material for his book.

As Robert digs deeper, it becomes clear he's learned a few things about Inga's past that she doesn't know -- and not everything she's been told about her mother is the truth. Novemberkind (aka November Child) was the first feature film from writer and director Christian Schwochow.