Turin. Four innocent people die in an assassination attempt. Phiiippa (Cate Blanchett), an English teacher, offers no resistance and allows herself to be taken into custody. She denies nothing-and is utterly devastated by the consequences. Her target was someone else: a drug dealer who has her husband and many of her students on his conscience. The police insist there was a political motive. A young policemen (Giovanni Ribisi) is the only one who believes the Englishwoman's story, because he is secretly convinced that the two of them are made for one another. He comes up with a plan that will give her back her freedom-even though it may cost him his career or even his life. He knows that to prove his love to her, he must ask nothing in return....

Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal / Germany. As an 11 year old, he started to shoot his first films an super 8. Since 1980 he worked in ad house theatres. In 1988 he started to manage the Berlin Moviemento cinemas and wrote script coverages for production companies. He also shot TV portraits of famous directors. After his first two shortfilms BECAUSE (1990) and EPILOGUE (1992), Tom Tykwer shot his first long feature film DIE TÖDLICHE MARIA (DEADLY MARIA) in 1993.
Together with the two directors Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy and the producer Stefan Arndt , Tykwer founded in 1994 the production company X FILME CREATIVE POOL GmbH. In the next upcoming 7 years the company produced, 14 movies feature films. Among those films was e.g. Wolfgang Beckers film DAS LEBEN IST EINE BAUSTELLE (LIFE IS WHAT YOU GET ) which was co- written by Tom Tykwer, before he shot his second feature WINTERSCHLÄFER (WINTER SLEEPERS) in 1996 /1997.
The next feature was LOLA RENNT (RUN LOLA RUN ) in 1998 which was a great international success. lt is the most successful film of that year in Germany and achieved spectacular box office results all over the world, as e.g. in the US where over 7 Million viewers made it one of the most successful non-american movies of all times.
Tom Tykwer collaborated in his 4th film „DER KRIEGER UND DIE KAISERIN ( THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR) again with actress Franka Potente. The film was presented to a world wide audience at the Film Festival in Venice in 2000. lt was shown in 20 different countries and won the award for Best Picture in silver at the German Film Awards in 2001.
In September 2000 Tom Tykwer shot his first film in English language. HEAVEN, starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi was the opening film of the International Berlin Film Festival 2002 and is now nominated for the German Film Awards as Best Picture. lt is going to be released world wide throughout the year 2002. In August 2002 Tom Tykwer shot the short film TRUE starring Natalie Portman and Melchior Beslon. TRUE is part of the compilation project PARIS, JE T'AIME, in which several international filmmakers (Jean-Luc Godard, Sally Potter, Johnny Depp, Agnäs Varda, Woody Allen, etc.) each teil a story set in a different district of Paris.