One of the watershed events in Germany following WWII, in addition to the fall of the Berlin Wall in l989, was a soccer game a little more than 50 years ago, the so-called “Miracle of Bern”. The unexpected German victory that took the World Cup even loomed larger in sports history and national ego than the unexpected l980 U.S. hockey triumph in the Olympics. As the wall fall led to the reunification of East and West Germany, the Bern triumph is credited with restoring German self-confidence after the disastrous Nazi experience and sparking the so-called “economic miracle” of the l950s. Director Soenke Wortmann,himself no mean soccer player, tells the rousing story of the symbolic turning point through the tale of one family in a West German mining town. The world of ll-year-old soccer-mad Matthias is turned upside down when his father suddenly returns home from release as a wartime prisoner in Russia just about the time the game is due for the cup championship with the competing Hungarian team that hadn’t lost a major competition in more than two years. The back story of how German families once more reestablish long-held strained relations owing to wartime absences figures strongly in plot. Film was one of the high points of a resurgence of quality German cinema in the last two yearsSönke Wortmann was born August 25, 1959 in Marl.After graduation, Sönke played professional soccer for three years. Without enough talent for a larger career, he left the game in search of a new field of study. After dabbling in sociology, he settled upon the Munich university for Film and Television in 1984. His first feature film, "Allein unter Frauen" (Alone amongst women), debuted to much success. —A.M.