General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Kokowääh

Kokowääh is a 2011 German comedy directed by Til Schweiger, with Torsten Künstler as co-director; Til Schweiger co-wrote the screenplay with Béla Jarzyk, produced the film through his company Barefoot Films, and plays the lead role of Henry, a screenwriter whose life is upended when an eight-year-old girl claiming to be his daughter appears at his door¹^•⁸. The girl is played by Emma Schweiger, the director's own daughter². The film was one of the most successful German productions of 2011, drawing 4,317,017 admissions in German cinemas by December of that year¹.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Kokowääh (Germany, 2011), a phonetic spelling of the French dish coq au vin³
Director and lead	Til Schweiger as Henry; co-director Torsten Künstler¹
Screenplay	Béla Jarzyk and Til Schweiger¹
Main cast	Til Schweiger (Henry), Emma Schweiger (Magdalena), Jasmin Gerat (Katharina), Samuel Finzi (Tristan), Meret Becker (Charlotte)⁴
German release	3 February 2011; FSK rating: ages 6 and up, holiday-approved¹
German admissions	4,317,017 (as of December 2011, source FFA)¹
Worldwide gross	$50,448,784, of which $42,932,362 in Germany⁵
Awards	FBW Prädikat wertvoll (2011); Jupiter Award 2012, Best Actor National¹

Spoilers

Plot

Henry is a screenwriter with no luck in either work or love. His life consists of a series of unsuccessful relationships and professional setbacks, and the television series he writes for is failing¹^•⁶. Things seem to turn around when he is hired as co-author of a prestigious screen adaptation of a best-selling novel, and his co-author turns out to be his ex-girlfriend Katharina, whom he secretly still loves¹.

Then a second surprise arrives: the eight-year-old Magdalena appears at Henry's door with a letter from her mother Charlotte, who is traveling to the United States and asks Henry to look after the girl for several weeks¹^•⁷. Magdalena is, according to the letter, his daughter from a long-forgotten one-night stand¹. Henry, who had no idea the encounter had consequences, is completely out of his depth, and the quick-witted Magdalena turns his easygoing bachelor life upside down¹.

A further complication is Tristan (Samuel Finzi), the man who until recently believed himself to be Magdalena's father⁶. Henry tries to keep Katharina from learning about a child conceived during the period when he and Katharina were a couple, and has to invent excuses again and again⁶. Over the course of the film Henry develops into a responsible father².

Sequel

A sequel, Kokowääh 2, followed in 2013, again with Til and Emma Schweiger¹³. Together with Keinohrhasen (2007) and Zweiohrküken (2009) and their sequels, the film belongs to the string of Schweiger romantic comedies that academic and industry analyses identify as a reliable source of high German box-office returns in the 2000s and early 2010s¹⁴.

Production

The film was shot from 20 July to 17 September 2010 in Berlin and Potsdam¹. It was produced by Barefoot Films GmbH (Berlin) in co-production with Béla Jarzyk Production GmbH and Warner Bros. Filmproduktion GmbH (Hamburg), in association with Sat.1, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures Germany⁸. Funding came from the German Federal Film Board (FFA), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF)⁸.

Schweiger filled several roles at once: lead actor, director, co-writer, and producer⁶. Christof Wahl was the cinematographer and Constantin von Seld the editor¹. The film was shot on 35 mm in color with Dolby sound; filmportal.de lists the original print at 3,459 meters and 123 minutes, while the German Film and Media Rating body (FBW) and several trade listings give a running time of 126 minutes¹^•².

The title

The title is a phonetic spelling of the French poultry classic coq au vin, chicken braised in wine, which is the only dish Henry can cook³^•⁹. According to Die Zeit, the unorthodox spelling comes from a scene in the film in which the eight-year-old Magdalena scores points in a Scrabble game by writing phonetically³. The trade publication Programmkino attributes the coinage to the Warner Germany executive Willi Geike, and notes that odd invented titles have long been a tradition in Schweiger's films, following Keinohrhasen ("no ear hares") and Zweiohrküken ("two-ear chicks")⁹.

Reception and box office

The film opened in German cinemas on 3 February 2011¹. It drew more than four million admissions in Germany in 2011, making it one of the most successful German productions of the year; the FFA's annual report counts it among the two most-attended German films of the 2011 cinema year, with 4.3 million admissions¹^•¹⁰. Box Office Mojo records a worldwide gross of $50,448,784, with $42,932,362 from Germany, $3,438,786 from Austria, and $3,050,540 from Switzerland⁵.

Critical response. The German Film and Media Rating body (FBW) awarded the film its Prädikat wertvoll ("valuable") rating. Its jury praised the interplay between Til Schweiger and his daughter Emma, calling her the film's great discovery, and noted the self-ironic jokes at the expense of the film industry that the screenwriter setting allows². Reviewers also highlighted Samuel Finzi's performance as Tristan; the portal cinema.de described the growing friendship between the two fathers as the film's emotional core, with the love story serving mainly as a supplement¹¹. The Filmdienst review was more reserved, criticizing the implausible characterization of the child, the lack of originality in the love story, and weak gags¹².

The film received the Bogey Award in Gold for three million admissions within 30 days and won the Deutscher Comedypreis 2011 as the most successful German film comedy¹³. At the Jupiter Awards 2012, Schweiger won Best Actor National¹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2011 to 2012 › Released in 2011

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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