MFDB

Storyline

In Turin, four innocent people are victims of a bomb attack. An English teacher named Philippa is taken into custody – she does not resist her arrest. Philippa is, nevertheless, utterly destroyed by what has occurred, because the bomb was intended for someone else altogether, namely a drug dealer responsible for the death of her husband as well as the deaths of many of her students. However, for reasons not immediately apparent, the police insist that Philippa’s motives for the attack were entirely political. Filippo, a young police officer who translates Philippa’s statement into Italian while she is being questioned, is the only one who believes this Englishwoman’s story. Filippo is, moreover, convinced that he and Philippa were made for each other. Filippo manages to smuggle a tiny dictating machine in to the prisoner and begins secretly communicating with her. He uses the machine to make Philippa a proposition,evolving a plan that will help her regain her freedom. However, Philippa’s cell has been bugged and Pini, the superintendent in charge of the case soon gets wind of their plot.What Pini doesn’t know is that whole scheme is merely a ruse and Filippo has something else entirely in mind for the woman with whom he has fallen so deeply in love... HEAVEN is both a thriller and a love story. It is a film about guilt, redemption and the overwhelming power of love. Tom Tykwer’s first international production is based on a screenplay written by the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who died in 1996.As Tom Tykwer comments:“I immersed myself in the screenplay as if it were my own. I was convinced that it touched on subjects that had concerned me in all my other films, except that this screenplay approached these topics in a way hitherto unknown to me. I was determined to take up the challenge of filming this script.”

Festivals & Academy awards and others

Berlin International Film Festival 2002
Competition