Tough young piano prodigy Jenny is serving time in a women's prison in Luckau, Germany. She meets her match in the elderly Traude, a Prussian woman who has been teaching piano to the inmates since World War II. But Traude's near-obsessive attachment to Jenny goes far beyond musical professionalism, becoming something much more fervid and intense. An upcoming pianists competition is an opportunity not to be missed, and the pair plot a daring escape. It all starts when Traude's efforts to bring a new concert piano into the prison spark a disastrous chain of events, and her life-long job as the institution's piano tutor is threatened. That's when she encounters Jenny for the first time: as volatile as a Molotov cocktail, a fireball that holds a tragic secret close to her heart whilst keeping all those around her at a distance. Now regarded by everyone as the worst of the worst, she was once a child piano prodigy before her fall from grace into a life of violence.
Traude enters the nihilistic delinquent into a contest, and it becomes her steadfast mission to tutor her - no matter how dangerous the task may be - so she may regain her considerable talents.
As the duo plan their intent to make it to the finals, it soon becomes apparent that, once there, Jenny will have only four minutes to prove herself, and no guarantee of freedom afterwards.
Can this unlikely alliance between good and evil, old and young, Schubert and hip hop, create beautiful music? Or will the administration's meddling and Jenny's rampages rip whatever hope the two women have to shreds?
Director Chris Kraus's script is packed with drama, thrills and explosive and secrets, not to mention characters that clash with the force of a powder keg.
From the barbarous environment of the prison - where not a soul can be trusted - to the glow of a refined concert hall, Jenny has only the four minutes of her final performance to achieve redemption.
Starring: Monica Bleibtreu, Hannah Herzsprung, Sven Pippig, Richy Müller and Jasmin Tabatabai
Four Minutes is released 7th March
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