Eight Miles High (2007)

Synopsis: Exuding the sexy poutiness of a Teutonic Bridget Bardot gone wild and the underground glamor and bad-girl attitude of Kate Moss, with just a dash of Jane Fonda’s chic revolutionary zeal, Uschi Obermaier not only shook conservative German society but also the anti-establishment and... Exuding the sexy poutiness of a Teutonic Bridget Bardot gone wild and the underground glamor and bad-girl attitude of Kate Moss, with just a dash of Jane Fonda’s chic revolutionary zeal, Uschi Obermaier not only shook conservative German society but also the anti-establishment and feminist movements she became part of. The hippie nymph and successful model never let business get in the way of pleasure, flaunting her romances with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix.

Obermaier was a teenage runaway from a small village who, after achieving early notoriety as a nude cover model for Stern (one of Germany’s leading magazines), became the it-girl of the Munich club scene. She soon joined Germany’s legendary and much-romanticized Kommune 1, famous for its strident anti-bourgeoisie way of life. This touch of radical chic worked wonders for her profile: Obermaier and boyfriend Rainer Langhans, leader of the commune, became the pin-up couple of the revolutionary left; Germany's own John and Yoko.

But for Obermaier, emancipation was about sexual freedom more than anything, and her celebrity and fun-loving ways led her away from activism to stints as a full-time Rolling Stones groupie and flirtation with acting (co-starring with a young Rainer Werner Fassbinder in one instance). Obermaier continued chasing independence with a new lover on a wild 10-year hippie adventure in a customized van – until tragedy forced her to question the price of freedom.

Obermaier now lives quietly in Topanga Canyon, but in Germany her fame has never been higher. Eight Miles High was a huge box-office success when it came out earlier this year, and High Times, the biography on which it is based, was a bestseller. At a time when German chancellor Angela Merkel is arranging for the release of the remaining jailed Baader-Meinhof members, Obermaier has remained a photogenic symbol of the new freedom Germany has come to define itself by. --© Dokument Films [More]