German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut Toronto is proud to partner again with Toronto Arab Film in widening the perception on film and film creatives out of Germany. TAF Salon, programmed by Ahmad Alhaj and Rolla Tahir, is a new initiative dedicated to building discourse on contemporary Arab Cinema through interviews with cinema creatives around the world about their craft, experiences in filmmaking, their thoughts on Arab cinema, and their hopes for it.

For this edition, TAF Artistic Director Rolla Tahir spoke with Berlin/Beirut cinematographer Chris Aoun (Capernaum) about his entry into film, how he honed his craft, and his views on the current wave of Arab cinema.
Continue reading "TAF Salon: Christopher Aoun" »

72 films from 29 countries (out of 14,200 entries), with nearly half directed by women, makes up this year's largely virtual Sundance Film Festival 2021 that runs 28 January to 3 February 2021. 50 Shorts, 4 Indie Series, 14 New Frontier Projects to Debut on Feature-Rich Digital Platform & Satellite Screens Nationwide complement this year's edition, for which you won't have to pack your skis.

Ronny Trocker's German-Italian-Danish feature HUMAN FACTORS (DER MENSCHLICHE FAKTOR), developed through the Torino Film Lab, is part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Continue reading "German Films @ Sundance 2021" »

T’is the season, or rather the year for Netflix. Let me give you The 12 Nights of German Film @ (Canadian) Netflix Christmas early, beginning with baking & singing, and moving to some brand-new holiday drama and January releases to look forward to:


Everyone is doing it, from the sourdough craze to other booming reality-show franchise formats like The Great Canadian Baking Show. Nailed It! Germany takes delight in culinary failure, and most of us can relate. More national Schadenfreude at Nailed It! Mexico, France and Nailed It! Holiday edition. Continue reading "12 Days of German Film @ Netflix" »

Join the International Literary Festival Berlin & @GoetheToronto free
worldwide screening day of Oscar-nominated documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” on December 10, 6pm EST with a Twitter contextualisation by Dr. Vershawn Young.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends—Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of his death in 1987, Baldwin left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript. "I started to read James Baldwin very early on in my life. At a time, as a young adult in the Sixties, when there were not that many authors in whom I could recognize myself, he was an important guide and mentor to me, as he was to many others. He helped me understand who I was and decipher the world around me," says filmmaker Raoul Peck.

Baldwin's discontinued project became the springboard for Peck's film "I Am Not Your Negro," (trailer) discussing Baldwin’s lived experiences in his own words as read by Samuel L. Jackson. On 10 December 2020, Human Rights Day, the Goethe-Institut Toronto is joining the international literary festival Berlin ilb and many other global organisations in a worldwide viewing day. Meet us on Twitter @GoetheToronto at 6pm EST alongside Baldwin expert and professor of African American Studies, Vershawn Young, who will contextualise the film and Baldwin's work and legacy and take your questions. Continue reading "Worldwide screening day: Raoul Peck's "I..." »

It is not every day that a member of government puts out a plea for support for arts and culture critical of current policy on the official government website, but German Culture Minister Monika Grütters, a member of Angela Merkel’s centre party CDU, did exactly this. Here is her appeal to save artists, our cultural institutions –theatres, concert halls, cinemas, clubs, festivals—and the cultural events that shape our societies and our lives. Culture as a “Lebensmittel”, literally a necessity of life and food for mind and soul:

Continue reading "German culture minister: Don’t sacrifice the..." »

Caroline Link, director of "Beyond Silence" and the Oscar-winning "Nowhere in Africa", is certainly one of the best-known and most successful women in German film. Her recent feature "All About Me", which will have its Canadian premiere as the opening night film of the EUFF 2020, is a novel adaptation and biopic about the young Hape Kerkeling, one of Germany's best-known comedians and entertainers. But why her first “outsourced” screenplay, how does a child actor manage to play such a singular character as Kerkeling, and what does Ms. Link think of the female filmmakers quota? German film blog Filmlöwinnen spoke with her about all these topics:

All About Me is the first of your films that you didn’t write the screenplay for yourself. How did that happen? Continue reading "Interview: Caroline Link's "All About..." »

Not only is Oscar winner Caroline Link's internationally celebrated literary adaptation "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" a strong contender for German's Academy Award submission, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and the Goethe-Institut are presenting the family film's Toronto online Oct 29-30. Don't miss the Zoom Q&A with director Caroline Link on Oct 31 at 3pm! The film has been praised (and criticized by some) for its stunning imagery, have a look...



Continue reading "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, in Pictures" »

German director Oskar Roehler's drama about Fassbinder's live and loves was chosen to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2020 and is, after its Hamburg Film Festival German premiere, nominated for a European Film Award for Best Feature and decided on December 12. Whether Enfant Terrible makes it from the current German Oscar submission long list to the Academy Award list for Best International Film we will already find out on October 28. German GQ magazine sat down with the two lead actors to talk about sex vs. love in queer stories:

In the cinema, Oliver Masucci plays legend Rainer Werner Fassbinder and TV presenter Jochen Schropp plays his lover. GQ met the cinema couple of the year for an interview about “an incredible love story.”

One of them comes from the Vienna Burgtheater, the other from a TV morning show, now their paths as actors cross in the crazy love story of the German cinema year. In the biopic about the legendary filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, “Enfant Terrible” by Oskar Roehler, Oliver Masucci, 51,* and Jochen Schropp, 41, show how straightforwardly love between two men can be brought to the screen – and the radically free way that the two actors are shaping their careers.

Mr. Schropp, this is something new: the host of “Celebrity Big Brother” is part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. How do you feel? Continue reading "Germany's Oscar submission long list: Enfant..." »

Sandra Hüller in conversation with Yvonne Büdenhölzer, Munich Kammerspiele, January 2014

Commissioned for the Goethe-Institut's Europoly project asking artists from across Europe to document the transformation of the "Old World" into a new one, this French-German short film stars actress Sandra Hüller as a woman waking up, amnesic, in an empty world. As she pulls her dog’s leash from the pocket of her coat, she starts looking for her dog, then recollects her town, and her kids. She keeps wandering, quite anxious, immersed in the image of her thoughts.