German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Continue reading "Silent Revue: German Season 2020" »

"Strippers displace Berlinale!“ a lurid tabloid headline revealed before Christmas. And yes, of course, I clicked through. Magic Mike the Musical man-spreading it at Berlinale Palast --home to a vast number of industry screenings and the competition's red carpet-- was just one of the calamities on the horizon for the new Berlinale team at the end of 2019. Newly installed co-directors AD Carlo Chatrian, formerly of Locarno, and ED Mariette Rissenbeek, formerly of German Films (my job entrance interview with her), had a good number of curveballs thrown their way –many of them craftily solved by now-- but also threw a couple of early wrenches themselves. Statements like "We are no glamour machine“ and "We are not Berlin Fashion Week“ led to a reprimand by the festival’s main financier, Culture Minister Monika Grütters, who made it quite clear that she expects fireworks as well as "programmatic and atmospheric changes“. If the school principal approach doesn’t bear fruit, Helen "The Queen“ Mirren will save the red carpet when accepting this year‘s honorary Golden Bear, alongside Jeremy Irons giving most likely not boring remarks as jury president. The Berlinale is known for being "political", perhaps featuring two of Britain's best actors is a love letter to the Brexiting nation.

Weeks before the 70th Berlinale (re)starts, things are looking up. Continue reading "#Berlinale2020: Year 70 or Year 1?" »

11 years of research, 350 hours of total footage against forgetting: With SHOAH (Berlinale 1985), French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann created the most comprehensive document about the extermination of European Jews in the 20th century. The Goethe-Institut Toronto and its partners the Miles Nadal JCC Toronto, the Jewish Film Society, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, POV Magazine, and Hot Docs are screening SHOAH on 27 January 2020, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Join us at the institute between 9.30am and 5pm to watch the multi-hour film or part of it. Toronto author Bernice Eisenstein will be available between noon and 2pm in our library for conversations.

If you are interested in more background: In 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps (and the 30th anniversary of his film), director Lanzmann talked about his monumental investigation of the Shoah and his cinematic treatment of its horrors with French documentary channel Toute l'Histoire (45min., in French):

When US streaming giant Netflix launched in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxemburg in 2014, it heavily relied on its catalogue of standard American fare. But then came supernatural German hit thriller DARK in 2017 –Netflix’ first very successful foray into milking the global content creation market—and they haven’t stopped maximising this business model since, with crime show DOGS OF BERLIN (2018) or the popular coming-of-age dramedy HOW TO SELL DRUGS ONLINE – FAST (2019). With their latest German production, the teen drama WE ARE THE WAVE that just started airing, Netflix is going daringly political.


Continue reading "“We Are the (Next) Wave”: New Netflix series..." »

⭐ “Itʼs legitimately hard to know where to spend your movie going dollars these days. If you want something different, @GoetheToronto is here to help.” – @intheseats

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📝 “Wanted to thank you for my free ticket to see THE TWO POPES at TIFF. It proved to be a wonderful film, and the post-screening chat with the director, writer and actors was the icing on a very delectable cake. Thanks for drawing my name, and ongoing kudos for your excellent blog. I look forward to attending GOETHE FILMS ‘Stronger Than Bloodʼ film series.” – audience member Continue reading "Our Year in Film 2019" »

While looking over German films in production, I noticed that star auteur Christian Petzold, after a slew of films delving deep into German and European history, is currently following the fantastical siren call of the genre film with his new film UNDINE. As are many other intriguing filmmakers.

Historian Undine (Paula Beer of TRANSIT) works as a tour guide in Berlin. When her boyfriend (Jacob Matschenz of THE WAVE) leaves her for another women, her deepest secret breaks through the surface of her normal, urban life: Under a spell, Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water she came from. But this Undine, unlike the fairy tale mermaid, refuses to give in to her fate. She does not want to kill, or leave. Then she meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski of TRANSIT) and falls in love. As an industrial diver, he introduces her to his underwater world — one she already knows. They spend happy times together, but he feels that she is running away from something. The film wrapped shooting in August, I hope to see it in the Berlinale competition. Perhaps it’ll be what THE SHAPE OF WATER was to TIFF. Btw, it is also starring actor-director Maryam Zaree, who was just in Toronto as a guest of the Goethe-Institut with her documentary BORN IN EVIN. If you can’t wait till late February to hopefully see in-demand multilingual star Paula Beer (FRANTZ), catch her in (European) cinemas right now in Abel Lanzac's action thriller THE WOLF'S CALL, a (literally dark) near-future submarine drama.

87-year-old and recently very active master Alexander Kluge Continue reading "Fly me to the moon (or mars or hades): The new..." »

In October, we introduced you to Toronto filmmaker Stephanie Weimar and her new project WRITING THE LAND (produced by Primitive Entertainment for CBC Arts and Arte/ZDF) in our series "The Making of" that follows two German-Canadian film projects over one year. Now we're checking in with the team to hear about their latest travel, new writing that has emerged, and an editing road map.

Dear Stephanie, in our last conversation you mentioned that you were looking forward to seeing how the subject matter of your film interweaves – the land and the writing.
Can you let us in on one of these, literally, story-telling and story-making encounters you had with a Canadian writer?
It’s all very exciting. So far we have visited with eight writers, most recently we spent two days with Esi Edugyan ("Half Blood Blues" and "Washington Black") and another two with Joshua Whitehead in Calgary ("Full-Metal Indigiqueer: Poems" and "Jonny Appleseed"). As we’re gathering more content, more stories, I can see each episode taking shape, which is always a thrilling experience. When a project, which previously had only been a vision in my head, actually comes into being. Continue reading "The Making of: "Writing the Land" in..." »

The 36th edition of the Sundance Film Festival will take place from 23 January-2 February, 2020 in Park City, Utah. It is regarded as the most important North American film festival in the indie scene and is organized by the Sundance Institute, which was founded by Robert Redford in 1981. The festival is held in particular esteem as a springboard for up-and-coming independent film directors. Great news for the Goethe-Institut Toronto: Bianca Kennedy and Felix Kraus ("Swan Collective"), who created a VR piece for the institute's Goethe Media Space in downtown Toronto in the spring, have been invited to the Sundance New Frontier section dedicated to experimental media works across VR, AR, MR and AI.

EXIL by Visar Morina (DE/BE/XK, Komplizen Film) will be screening at Park City in the World Dramatic Competition. The drama by the writer-director Morina, which was awarded the German Screenplay Prize, centres on Xhafer (Mišel Matičević), a pharmaceutical engineer who feels discriminated and bullied at work, plunging him into an identity crisis.

Morina received several awards for his father-son drama BABAI, including the prize for "Best Director" and the "Europa Cinema Label" at the 2015 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, as well as "Best Director" and "Best Script" at the 2015 Filmfest München. The cast includes Sandra Hüller (TONI ERDMANN). Continue reading "Sundance: German films in Park City" »

If you saw the Nina Hoss-led drama PELICAN BLOOD at TIFF19 (or her other new feature, THE AUDITION, for that matter) you might have wondered how an 5-year-old actress can possibly play a “possessed” child --let alone in a foreign language-- to such a degree of authenticity and intensity. Berlinale winner and German Oscar nominee SYSTEM CRASHER is another example of nearly too-perfect-to-be-true “difficult child” performances, in a year heavy with outstanding youngest performers (JOJO RABBIT ...). The arthouse phenomenon --a debut film no less-- was a surprisingly huge box office success as well, and composer John Gürtler received the European Film Award. SYSTEM CRASHER director Nora Fingscheidt is currently shooting an English-language film in the US and is in pre-production for a new German feature dealing with Germany's post-war Nazi legacy.

Helena Zengel, now 11, plays the lead in the SYSTEM CRASHER. German newspaper Die Welt spoke with director Nora Fingscheidt about intense film shoots with children and the right dose of violence:

After SYSTEM CRASHER received the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, Fingscheidt received 35 new screenplays. From Ukraine to Taiwan to Portugal her film has won 20+ awards. In August, it was entered as a German candidate for the Academy Awards. And then 8-year-old Helena Zengel, who embodies desperately aggressive Benni, a child who slips through all the ropes of support, is now in the United States playing the female lead in Tom Hanks’s new film NEWS OF THE WORLD (out Christmas 2020). Continue reading "German Oscar submission: System Crashers" »