The Better Sides Of Life

Sibylle (40) is a supernumerary actress at an en-suite-theatre in Berlin. She is an illiterate but nobody knows her secret because she has figured out a clever system to handle her life and has developed a brilliant memory instead. Everything she knows, she learns through broadcast, television and audio-cassettes. In dangerous situations she normally finds a way out – often in a humorous way. This helps her to build up her self-confidence. This sensitive balance gets in danger, when Sibylle falls in love with Edgar. Edgar is a 50-year-old secondary school-teacher. She does not dare to tell him the truth, even if it hurts her that she has to lie all the time. At the same time when she falls in love with Edgar, an advertising agency is interested in her. They want her for advertising on tv, posters and so on... for books. After some wavering she accepts and... is tremendously successful. Some day she thinks she is pregnant. She takes a test and since she can´t read, she does it wrong and gets to the conclusion that she is not pregnant. As she realizes her mistake it is too late for an abortion. Sibylle is desperate and decides to tell Edgar the truth. But his reaction is quite different than she expected: He loves the idea to become a father and tells her now that she has to learn to read and write for the benefit of the child. Sibylle refuses. She argues with him only because she is afraid to fail again. So she decides to leave him... but things always turn out different in the end... This is a bitter comedy with a vital anti-heroine who has learned to live with her deficites in a self-confident way. The film is also interested in the mechanisms, how someone can live – and be successful in a (any) country where an illiterate is commonly looked upon as a misfit. Often it is enough to maintain the proper surface to become highly successful because nobody is really interested in the reality behind the facade – here for example in the world of advertising and trivial tv-shows. Who cares... do you?