Ein Hologramm für den König

A Hologram for the King

Perspektive Match 2023

“And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?” Alan Clay has nightmares. In one, he has these lines from a Talking Heads’ song on his lips as he walks through a world in which supposed status symbols are all going up in clouds of smoke: house, car and wife – they all just go poof. Businessman Clay has been sent to Saudi Arabia for an IT deal but ends up vacillating between self-confidence and despair. In a tent in the middle of the desert, a bevy of employees await his arrival. And that of the king. The non-appearance of his Saudi Arabian majesty, to whom Clay is supposed to present a holographic telephone system, makes him feel like a character from the play “Waiting for Godot”. On top of everything else, he discovers a cyst growing on his back that has to be examined by a beautiful female doctor ...
Starring a wholly committed Tom Hanks, Tom Tykwer’s tragicomic film is a swansong to a man-made, artificial world. Frank Kruse’s multifaceted and imaginative sound design received a German Film Award.

by Tom Tykwer (Director), Dave Eggers (Screenplay)
with Tom Hanks, Alexander Black, Sarita Choudhury, Sidse Babette Knudsen, Tom Skerritt, Ben Wishaw, Khalid Laith, Megan Maczko Germany / USA 2016 English 98' Colour Rating R6

With

Tom Hanks (Alan Clay)
Alexander Black (Yousef)
Sarita Choudhury (Dr. Zahra Hakeem)
Sidse Babette Knudsen (Hanne)
Tom Skerritt (Ron Clay)
Ben Wishaw (Dave)
Khalid Laith (Karim Al-Ahmad)
Megan Maczko (Rachel)

Crew

Director	Tom Tykwer
Screenplay	Dave Eggers
Written by	Tom Tykwer
Cinematography	Frank Griebe
Editing	Alexander Berner
Sound	Roland Winke
Sound Design	Frank Kruse
Music	Johnny Klimek, Tom Tykwer
Set Design	Uli Hanisch
Sound Mixing	Matthias Lempert
Costumes	Pierre-Yves Gayraud
Make-Up	Heike Merker, Daniel Parker
Casting	Michelle Guish, Avy Kaufmann, Gaby Kester
Executive Producers	Gero Bauknecht, Claudia Bluemhuber, Irene Gall, Bill Johnson, Shervin Pishevar, Gaston Pavlovich, Jim Seibel, Steven Shareshian
Production Manager	Miki Emmrich
Line Producer	Marcus Loges
Co-Production	Fabrica de Cine Mexico City Silver Reel Zürich Vingt Deux Heures Vingt Deux Paris WS Film

Produced by

Playtone

Primeridian Entertainment

X Filme Creative Pool

Photos

Tom Tykwer

The director, screenwriter, composer and producer was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1965. He moved to Berlin in 1985 to study philosophy while also working as a projectionist. He was then manager of the Moviemento cinema in Berlin until the late 1990s. He made his international breakthrough as a filmmaker in 1998 with Run Lola Run. To date, he has made eleven feature films for the cinema. Since 2017, he has written and produced along with Achim von Borries and Henk Handloegten the award-winning series Babylon Berlin. He is founder, partner and managing director of the X Filme Creative Pool production company which he set up in 1995 with Stefan Arndt, Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy.

Filmography

1990 Because; short film 1992 Epilog (Epilogue); short film 1993 Die tödliche Maria (Deadly Maria) 1997 Winterschläfer (Winter Sleepers) 1998 Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) 2000 Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior) 2002 Heaven 2004 True; short film – episode from “Paris je t’aime” 2006 Parfum (Perfume: Story of a Murderer) 2009 The International · Deutschland 09; short film – episode “Feierlich reist” 2010 Drei (Three) 2012 Rosakinder · Cloud Atlas · Sense8; 3 episodes 2016 Ein Hologramm für den König (A Hologram for the King) 2017 Babylon Berlin; since 2017; 5 seasons 2025 Das Licht (The Light)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025