Eight Miles High (original title: Das wilde Leben, lit. The Wild Life) is a 2007 German biographical motion picture, set in the 1960s and depicting the "wild life" of Uschi Obermaier, a West German sex symbol and icon of the era.

Plot

Obermaier enjoyed sexual freedom at the legendary Kommune 1 in Berlin after being with the krautrock band Bröselpilze. In the Kommune, she becomes friendly with Rainer Langhans. The young woman from Munich gains employment as a model, and becomes a sex symbol and youth icon. Now a cover girl in Playboy magazine, she meets rock stars such as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, while Italian film producer, Carlo Ponti, offers her a ten-year contract, but she declines: her freedom is more important than a contract. During her intensive relationship with Keith Richards, she begins to recognize the dark side of the shiny glamour world she lives in: the isolation of the stars, and the groupie-populated milieux of anonymous hotel rooms — this is not her idea of life. She finds new freedom in a relationship with the adventurer Dieter Bockhorn (David Scheller). They fall in love and go on a six-year road trip around the world. Later, Bockhorn dies in a motorcycle accident in Mexico.

Cast

Production crew

Filming locations

Soundtrack

Ville Valo and Natalia Avelon recorded a cover version of the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood song Summer Wine for the soundtrack. A music video was also shot, featuring Valo and Avelon with the real Uschi Obermaier.