Before Christmas, Berlin filmmaker Konstantin Bock told us about his pre-Berlinale travel plans in our series "The Making of" that follows two German-Canadian film projects. Over the past months, Bock has made some important headway with the (true) story --featuring expensive Canadian NHL players-- of 1980s German hockey club owner Heinz Weifenbach who dreamt of making it big … with the help of a dictator.Konstantin, you’re deep in research and finding a voice for writing the film. How is that going?
Screenwriter Stefanie Schmitz and I received a writing grant from the German Film Board (FFA) and immediately decided to pack our bags and move to Iserlohn, the small town in the Sauerland area of Germany where our story takes place. Previously, I had spent an entire evening on the phone with several people from Iserlohn and I realized that this is not something we can do remotely -- we really needed to be there, research and explore locally, we needed to become part of the social fabric there. Where did Heinz Weifenbach live? Who did he interact with? And who didn't want to interact with him?
Following from that insight we found that Heinz' environment needed to play a bigger part in the film than we had originally envisioned: small-town hustlers, local political quarrels and the determined dream of making it big in the German ice hockey league against all odds -- that's the foundation of our story, a scenario that quickly disintegrates when a Libyan terrorist, who seems to be their only solution against bankruptcy, enters the stage. Continue reading "THE MAKING OF: THE ICE KING "on..." »
Congratulations to filmmaker Marc Wiese, who just won the FACT:AWARD at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, with this new documentary "We Hold the Line", which had its world premiere at the prestigious Danish festival.
With cinemas and film festivals in Canada, Germany and across the world currently closed or postponing their live programming, we are discovering the virtues of streaming. Among the offerings, one of the best is 
The winning films of the German Film Board FFA short film award Short Tiger 2020 have been chosen. “Due to the restrictions required to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the award ceremony for the 10th annual Short Tiger Awards was not only quieter than in previous years, but practically silent,” says Frank Völkert, deputy FFA board member. “Nevertheless, I would like to warmly congratulate the winners for their funny, thoughtful and also formally innovative films. And of course for the prize money and the deserved distribution they will have once cinemas are showing films and festivals are taking place again.”
In order to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis on the German film and cinema industry, the Executive Committee of the German Federal Film Board (FFA) decided an extensive package of measures and the creation of an aid fund jointly supported by the FFA, the German Ministry of Culture, and state sponsors. 
We asked Toronto critic Adam Nayman (Sight & Sound, Ringer, Cinema Scope) to give our GOETHE FILMS audiences an introduction to the range of German actor Ronald Zehrfeld (“Phoenix”). While unfortunately last week, we couldn’t show you the North American premiere of Philipp Leinemann’s “Blame Game” with Zehrfeld in the lead, which was meant to close our GOETHE FILMS spy thriller series, Nayman’s detailed appreciation of Ronald Zehrfeld’s “thrillingly ambiguous acting" easily stands alone:
"In 2005, the German Federal Criminal Police, the BKA, was about to arrest an AI Qaida commander named Louai Sakra in Germany when he disappeared overnight without a trace. Sakra was known as a close ally of AI Qaeda in Iraq. To date, the heads of the BKA believe that the German Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, smuggled the high-ranking terrorist out of the country. 
With cinemas and film festivals in Canada, Germany and across the world currently closed or postponing their live programming, we are discovering the virtues of streaming. Among the offerings, one of the best is 
