I STOOD in a lather of indecision on Conduit Road this morning as two empty taxis passed by. This was not reverse discrimination, but the results of watching Sliding Doors and Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run). Sliding Doors suggests that if you miss a tube in London, you end up with John Hannah and a fabulous blonde shag haircut, while if you get the train, you suffer a cheating-louse mate and a dead-end job. Lola Rennt suggests mere seconds make the difference between life and death. In brief, when Lola (Franka Potente) trips over a snarling dog and falls down the stairs, she becomes a trigger-happy gangster and dies, but when she jumps over the dog she makes lots of money in a casino and lives happily ever after. After Sliding Doors, I thought being late merely increased the chances of bumping into George Clooney at Joyce Cafe. Now, following Lola Rennt, the concept of parallel lives is making me dizzy with death-case scenarios and I may have to become a recluse. But not before I have seen everything in Max, an exciting festival of new films from Austria, Germany and Switzerland run by the Goethe Institute which finishes on Thursday. It is symbolised around town by a cartoon cow because apparently Hong Kong people see cattle and think, wow, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. There is even a big blue cow standing outside the doors to the Arts Centre, which is less a reminder of parallel lives than the parallel planets which some people seem to happily inhabit. The fortnight-long Max started with a screening of Lola Rennt, probably the grooviest thing to come out of Germany in living memory - or at least since Wim Wenders started to believe his own press. Written and directed by Tom Tykwer and premiered at the Venice Film Festival to enthusiastic acclaim, Lola Rennt is unusual for an art film: it's exciting. Tykwer has used live action, stop-motion and animation techniques accompanied by a hip techno score to present three alternate scenarios in the life of Lola, who has 20 minutes to find 100,000 Deutschmarks for her boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). But it also fields three alternate scenarios for everyone else in Lola's life - I particularly liked the photo montage which raced through the lives of assorted bit-players to present either grisly deaths or happy-ever-after endings. Lola Rennt only had one screening at Max, at a gala opening party which was held in the 'garden' of the APA (if you can legitimately call a stretch of concrete a garden). There was also a screening of German box-office sensation The Comedian Harmonists (showing again on Tuesday night) at the event which was, unusually, open to the public. Food, drink and film neatly segued into an all-night techno rave and the two-week-long Max was officially up-and-running. It was groovy and considerably less stuffed-shirt than Hong Kong's other film 'events', such as the Hong Kong International Film Festival (orange juice and Urbco speeches at the Cultural Centre) or the Hong Kong Film Awards (no orange juice and interminable thank-you speeches). As film audiences get younger and younger - you'd have to be a foetus to have your brain tickled by Godzilla - this is the way to go to get bums back on seats. Hong Kong is definitely maturing as a market for film: 'names' aren't selling here, not even Jet Li and Mel Gibson could cut the box-office mustard with Lethal Weapon 4 (piracy isn't helping, with studios losing nearly 40 per cent of their take to poor-quality DVDs). When you consider that Lethal Weapon 4 made decent money in the rest of Southeast Asia, it's obvious Hong Kong is leading the way again as a newly sophisticated movie market. Local films were the first to suffer, but now indifferent Hollywood product is also getting its marching orders from the Hong Kong viewing public. This is good news, because I've heard Hollywood executives talk about the 'Chinese market' in the same way I imagine Mattel might talk about selling Barbie dolls to the under-sixes. There's a move towards art films, symbolised by the success of Broadway Cinematheque, and these pictures can actually make more money for distributors despite lower attendance figures because they cost less to buy and market. There's a bidding war going on for the rights to Lola Rennt as I write and I'm predicting that it turns a good profit for whoever purchases it. Two other films in Max - Knockin' On Heaven's Door and Bandits - have already been purchased for distribution in Hong Kong. Not all art films are good films, needless to say, but a larger audience for international product is good for the marketplace in general. As Lola Rennt is a low-budget German film and Sliding Doors is a low-budget English film, and both are proving hugely successful internationally, we can expect a Hollywood parallel lives bonanza remake any day. The concept is terrifying. Already I'm not sure whether to finish this column or go to the kitchen for another cup of tea. In the first case, I could go back to Conduit Road and get hit by a bus, or in the second scenario, a knife could drop on my foot, I could go to the ER room, and meet the Hong Kong equivalent of Dr Ross (George Clooney). I think I'll just sit on the couch for the time being ...