German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

The topic of sustainability in operating cinemas has arrived in industry discussions, with a growing need for insights into creative solutions and onboarding movie-goers.The German Federal Film Board (FFA) for example has expanded its funding portfolio for movie theatres to include more ecological and sustainable measures. Cinema operators can receive support from the FFA if a photovoltaic system is installed on the cinema roof, bicycle parking spaces are built in front of the entrance or they run an energy consult.

The FFA has also just updated their Green Cinema Handbook, authored by media journalist Birgit Heidsiek and offering information on legal requirements, possible solutions and best practice examples for energy efficiency, renewable energies, concession and waste management. Here's a peek:

Target 1: Energy Efficiency

Continue reading "Green Cinema Handbook 2.0" »

The Goethe-Institut Toronto is proud to present the Canadian premiere of Sabrina Sarabi's award-winning "No One's With the Calves" as the film representing Germany at the EUFF Canada 2022, streaming and in cinema in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Here's the origin story, told by the director:

How did you come across Alina Herbing‘s novel and what attracted you to it?
My starting point was wanting to adapt a novel. After my very personal debut, I liked the idea of filming material that I had to make my own. I started reading a lot in the editing phase of “Prélude”, and then my producer gave me "Calves." I read the book in one go and thought it was great: This weird young woman who acts so incredibly stupidly but has something gentle about her captivated me at once. And as opposed to other books I liked before, here I could see the whole movie in my mind‘s eye right away.

After the ambitious self-optimizers in Prélude, No One‘s with the Calves looks at the aimless and the disoriented: Are these to you two facets of your own generation? Continue reading "EUFF22: Sabrina Sarabi on No One's With The Calves" »

Ten years ago, German documentary director Marc Wiese blew away international audiences –among others at TIFF– with his innovative hybrid film "Camp 14 - Total Control Zone" about an escape from a North Korean torture camp and I had the opportunity to engage him in an intense conversation about his work and process. Wiese is back with his latest hard-hitting global doc "This Stolen Country of Mine," which Screen Daily praised for its "impactful, on-the-ground urgency" and which the Goethe-Institut Toronto is happy to co-present at Planet in Focus Film Festival.
Continue reading "Marc Wiese: This Stolen Country of Mine " »

Ten years ago, German documentary director Marc Wiese blew away TIFF --and other international audiences-- with his film "Camp 14 - Total Control Zone" about North Korean torture camps and I had the opportunity to engage him in an intense conversation about his work and process. Wiese is back with his latest hard-hitting global doc "This Stolen Country of Mine,"
which Screen Daily praised for its "impactful, on-the-ground urgency" and which the Goethe-Institut Toronto is happy to co-present at Planet in Focus Film Festival.
Continue reading "Marc Wiese: This Stolen Country of Mine " »

Ten years ago, German documentary director Marc Wiese blew away TIFF --and other international audiences-- with his film "Camp 14 - Total Control Zone" about North Korean torture camps and I had the opportunity to engage him in an intense conversation about his work and process. Wiese is back with his latest hard-hitting global doc "This Stolen Country of Mine,"
which Screen Daily praised for its "impactful, on-the-ground urgency" and which the Goethe-Institut Toronto is happy to co-present at Planet in Focus Film Festival.
Continue reading "Marc Wiese: This Stolen Country of Mine @ PiF" »

Berlin directors Mohammed Abugeth & Daniel Carsenty were in the official TIFF 2021 & DOC NYC selection and are back in Toronto for one night at the Toronto Palestinian Film Festival 2022 with their documentary The Devil’s Drivers, in which they accompanied Bedouins smuggling Palestinian workers through the Negev desert for a decade. I spoke to them before their world premiere about difficult terrain and documentary responsibilities:

Our friends at German Films, the national film promoter and long-time Goethe-Institut partner, once again hosted European, Canadian and international industry and talent at TIFF, in splendid sunshine and, as you can see, in a buoyant mood. Thank you to their team from Munich and New York for amplifying German films and co-productions.


Talent and creative team of German Oscar contender All Quiet On The Western Front Continue reading "GERMAN FILMS @ TIFF 2022 reception" »

If you’re expecting a remake of the romantic 1950s Sissi melodramas that brought a teenage Romy Schneider to fame, look for other current treatments of the Sissi myth. Austrian auteur Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage offers a luminous character portrait of a torn and tortured woman in mid-life that reveals a lot and resolves nothing. Continue reading "#TIFF22: Corsage #review" »

☆ German Oscar contender All Quiet On the Western Front is relentlessly good, from the hyper-concentrated ensemble acting --it is not hard to predict German Film Awards for Felix Kämmerer and Albrecht Schuch-- to magnificent camera, the meticulous design & near-perfect score by @hauschkamusic to Edward Berger’s tight direction. Watch the trailer.
Review to follow.

☆ If you want to see stellar acting (and like Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread) — Continue reading "#TIFF22 halftime in tweets" »

Starting TIFF22 with a film we will not see: In an April 2021 interview with German weekly Die Zeit, filmmaker Ulrich Seidl had said: "I stage reality, and deliberately intervene. But there are limits, of course." The provocative Austrian director and chronicler of social dysfunction and human misdemeanour, known for his Paradise trilogy, is no stranger to strife and hot-button topics, but seems to have now crossed one line too many. (Austrian actually has a semi-reverent word for their own brand of artistic instigators: Nestbeschmutzer, someone who sullies their own nest).

TIFF called off the world premiere (without further comment to my knowledge) of his latest film Sparta amidst allegations of the mistreatment of minors on set. Continue reading "Ulrich Seidl, from Paradise to Purgatory" »