German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

German central film funder FFA just awarded over 2 million euros to six new productions, four screenplays, one treatment, and scripts in development.

The German-British co-production "The Outrun" is the new project by Berlinale and Film Award winner Nora Fingscheidt ("System Crasher"). Irish-U.S. actress Saoirse Ronan takes the lead role in the alcoholism drama based on Amy Liptrot's memoir of the same name about a young woman's new beginning. Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Scottish Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. When she returns to the sheep farm where she grew up, memories of childhood mingle with the catastrophic events that set her on the road to recovery. Continue reading "Next up from Nora Fingscheidt ("The..." »

Little moving works of art flutter through the opening and closing credits of the German TV ARD miniseries “Eldorado KaDeWe.” Xenia Fink, an illustrator from Berlin, is their creator. Continue reading "The Sensuality of Opening Credits" »

When Zazie hears that her former best friend is getting married, she cannot accept it. But when she decides to sabotage the wedding, something strange happens... Zazie relives the same day over and over again. Maggie Peren's fresh and cheerful romantic comedy convinces with a first-class ensemble and many ideas that give the time loop genre a new spin. Continue reading "Hello Again -- A Wedding a Day" »

Kassel- & Berlin-based documentary filmmaker Antonia Kilian spent a year in Kurdistan to portray Hala, a 19-year-old female freedom fighter for "The Other Side of the River," the documentary that garnered Kilian a German Film Award nomination. As part of her Goethe x LIFT Masterclass on emancipatory filmmaking, Kilian talked to Goethe-Institut programmer Jutta Brendemuhl on emancipatory filmmaking, emotional landscapes and observing moments of revolutionary change.

Scott Miller Berry, lead programmer of Toronto's Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival and a long-time collaborator of Goethe-Instituts from Toronto to Jakarta to Bangalore, attended the 68th Oberhausen Short Film Festival, the festival's first in-person edition since 2019. German Film @ Canada asked him to report back on highlights and critical takeaways in a 2-part festival report:

On to the films at the 68th Oberhausen Short Film Festival – starting with a timely opening film by one of six artists in Profile, Rainer Komers. The festival opened with Komers' 30-minute 1980 black-and-white portrait of a Sinti Romani community who settled in the neighbouring city of Duisburg and were forcefully removed into traditional private housing. Continue reading "Letter from Oberhausen, part 2" »

Scott Miller Berry, lead programmer of Toronto's Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival and a long-time collaborator of Goethe-Instituts from Toronto to Jakarta to Bangalore, attended the 68th Oberhausen Short Film Festival, the festival's first in-person edition since 2019. German Film @ Canada asked him to report back on highlights and critical takeaways in a 2-part festival report:

I've lost track of how many times I've been fortunate to visit the venerable Oberhausen Short Film Festival near Dusseldorf in the west of West Germany, but I believe the first visit was in 2007 or 2008. This year felt more special than most because it was their first edition back in the beautiful Lichtburg Cinema since 2019, following two exclusively online festivals. In 2020 the festival was planning a large focus on Canadian creators with a series of live celluloid film-based performances, a 16mm handmade film workshop from the Film Farm (Philip Hoffman’s independent imaging retreat in Ontario), book launches, talks and presence from dozens of artists from across so-called Canada. Continue reading "Letter from Oberhausen, part 1" »

When they need sinking ships or thrashing sandstorms, Hollywood calls on Gerd Nefzer. In Denis Villeneuve's Canadian-American production Dune – for which he won an Oscar – he even brought sandworms to life.

Gerd Nefzer is a modest, down-to-earth guy. In jeans and a sweater, he seems like the nice man next door. His company is based on at Studio Babelsberg, and at first glance there’s nothing to indicate that they are Oscar winners. That was in 2018 for special effects in the film Blade Runner 2049. Now Nefzer has won his second Oscar for special effects in the visual effects category; this time for the science fiction film Dune.


Continue reading "And the Oscar for Visual Effects goes to..." »

Canadian premiere! One night only Thursday 19 May 2022, 6:30 pm at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox: “Confessions of Felix Krull” by Detlev Buck... "the gin and tonic among Thomas Mann adaptations.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

A handsome youth of humble origins rises in society through his connections made as an elevator attendant in a luxury hotel. Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann's tale of an eager young upstart and con man, who switches places with the Marquis de Venosta to win over the charming Zaza is not exactly a feminist tale. Continue reading "Confessions of Felix Krull: Between Zaza and..." »

"Operation Curveball" is based on real events --"unfortunately," as the opening titles note--, so the genre of political satire fit the bill for a refugee who fooled the German and other Western intelligence services with monumental fallout. The tagline sums it up nicely: the true story of a global lie. For the GOETHE FILMS Toronto premiere, we asked Canadian Middle East expert Alan Barnes to introduce the film. Analyst Barnes was the one who advised the Chrétien government that Saddam Hussein had no active WMD program:

Canadian premiere! One night only Thursday 19 May 2022, 6:30 pm at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox: “Confessions of Felix Krull” by Detlev Buck... "the gin and tonic among Thomas Mann adaptations.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Confessions of Felix Krull, wherein a handsome youth of humble origins rises in society through his connections made as an elevator attendant in a luxury hotel, is a perennially popular novel, written by Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann between 1910 and 1913 and from 1950 to 1954. It is an unfinished work -- a sequel was planned but never came to be. The first edition appeared in 1954, and the author still made changes to it. The final, third version came out in 1955. According to the 79-year-old Mann, it would be "no misfortune" if the novel, which was laid out in three books, "remained wide open." Continue reading "Confessions of Felix Krull: From Mann to..." »