German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

As we are about to screen our next Toronto GOETHE FILMS series under the banner "Past Forward -- Directors before Cannes," the Cannes International Film Festival has announced the majority of its 2019 festival program.

The German co-productions THE TRAITOR by Marco Bellocchio (IT/FR/BR/DE), IT MUST BE HEAVEN by Elia Suleiman (FR/DE/CA/TK), A HIDDEN LIFE by Terrence Malick (US/DE), LITTLE JOE by Jessica Hausner (AT/GB/DE) and THE WHISTLERS by Corneliu Porumboiu (RU/FR/DE) will be screened in competition.

FAMILY ROMANCE LLC by Werner Herzog will be shown in the Special Screenings section.
Continue reading "A good (German) year at Cannes" »

The German Federal Film Board FFA has just awarded 2.5 million euros for six new film projects and three screenplays.

UNDINE by Christian Petzold (TRANSIT; PHOENIX) with leads Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski will be made with €346,000 funding from the FFA. Following the great success of DER VORNAME (HOW ABOUT ADOLF?), Sönke Wortmann (THE MIRACLE OF BERN) is making yet another comedy of manners with his new project CONTRA, which was granted funding of €450,000. Funded with €600,000, the new project directed and written by Simon Verhoeven (WELCOME TO GERMANY), the comedy NIGHTLIFE, promises great cinematic entertainment. The fifth part of the successful Ostwind children's film series and the two feature film debuts LE PRINCE by Lisa Bierwirth and MY SON by Lena Stahl are also receiving FFA production funding. Continue reading "Latest projects by Petzold, Wortmann, Verhoeven" »

Special Mention at the Locarno Festival, invitations to the Toronto International Film Festival, Viennale, FICUNAM, CPH:DOX: Andrea Bussmann’s mystical debut feature FAUSTO, a Canadian-Mexican co-production, offers a beautiful, cryptic take on Goethe's classic Faustian myth. Catch it @TIFF_NET from April 11-18 straight from MoMa, and presented by Toronto production company MDFF. For our blog, MDFF's Kazik Radwanski (HOW HEAVY THIS HAMMER, TOWER, SCAFFOLD) talked to Andrea Bussmann about metamorphoses, decolonization, as well as literary and other inspirations.

​ Continue reading "FAUSTO & the devil in Oaxaca (& win tix!)" »

The international documentary film scene will be getting together for the 26th time at Hot Docs, one of the most important documentary film festivals in the world, from 25th April to 5th May 2019. A total of 15 German films and coproductions will be shown at Hot Docs this year.

All good things come in threes at the Hot Doc World Showcase. Continue reading "Germany goes Hot Docs" »

Many thanks to our audiences for coming out and supporting new voices and new stories in our film series "One Fine Day: Africa Now", and to the distributor Rushlake Media as well as our co-presenter, the Toronto Black Film Festival! Look out for the next Kenyan-German co-production as part of One Fine Day Films, LUSALA by Mugambi Nthiga (who worked on SUPA MODO and KATI KATI), premiering in June.

Some responses:

“This whole series is wonderful and so strong. You will not regret a single one of the films, and you will come out with a completely different view of the world, as these films will affect you deeply. When I watched them, they stayed in my head for days. Emotional and Intellectual, diverse and wonderful each in their own way.” – Barbara Goslawski, Frameline Radio

​“SUPA MODO screens as part of a double bill with TIFF16 film KATI KATI. It’s very hard to see African film in North America, and @GoetheToronto has curated festival favourites of the past few years.” – Tweet by Seventh Row Continue reading "One Fine Day: emotional & intellectual,..." »

As our guest curator Tina Sauerlaender is flying in from Berlin tomorrow for our install of "Touching From A Distance II" at the Goethe Media Space, watch her sneak peek at the show. Curious? Meet her live on Friday, March 22, 2019 at 6:30pm in conversation with artists Jonas Blume, Felix Kraus, Lorna Mills, and Tina Wilke, free and open to the public at the Goethe-Institut Toronto. With thanks to our co-presenters Hot Docs, Images Festival & Digifest!

Our One Fine Day Films series of Tom Tykwer-produced Kenyan-German co-productions becomes more political and hard-hitting on our last evening, March 12. SOMETHING NECESSARY by Academy-member Judy Kibinge starts with real footage from the 2007 post-election riots in Kenya and then becomes the fictional/fictionalised story of Anne in another beautifully female-centric film, a woman struggling to rebuild her life after the civil unrest claimed the life of her husband, the health of her son and left her isolated farm in ruins. A truth and reconciliation tale played out in a social drama.

Stay for the credits and you will find that our colleagues at the Goethe-Institut Kenya have been partners in this film as in other One Fine Day productions!




Continue reading "One Fine Day Films: Something Necessary in..." »

Join us for the exhibition opening on Friday, March 22, 2019 at 6:30pm with the curator and artists Jonas Blume, Felix Kraus, Lorna Mills, and Tina Wilke in conversation -- with you!
Continue reading "Transmediations in the Digital Age" »

We're closing our GOETHE FILMS series "One Fine Day: Africa Now" with the drug thriller VEVE on March 12. A classic genre piece, featuring ruthless businessmen, corrupt politicians, farmers trying to unionize -- and veve, better known as kath, a semi-legal soft drug. Canadian audiences might think of our recent weed legalisation.

German director Sven Taddicken was the supervising director on this one, you might remember his own harrowing crime and revenge drama THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COUPLE from last year’s TIFF.

Continue reading "One Fine Day Films: Veve in pictures" »

Philipp Hoffmann is the head of Cologne's Rushlake Media, who distribute films coming out of Tom Tykwer's production house One Fine Day Films, the focus of our GOETHE FILMS series this March. I caught up with him at TIFF18 (where he premiered Jahmil X.T. Qubeka’s Apartheid drama SEW THE WINTER TO MY SKIN) and talked to him about the success and position of new African films and co-productions.