German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Buy tickets for Berlin Alexanderplatz (Oct 7)
Buy tickets for Fabian (Oct 12)
Buy tickets for Transit (Oct 14)

Continue reading "Goethe Films: History Now - Qurbani, Graf, Petzold" »

Comedy is subjective, Murray, isn't that what they say? All of you, you decide what's right or wrong the same way you decide what's funny or not. What applies to Joaquin Phoenix’ Joker applies to German comedy The Black Square, screening in the TIFF 2021 market and coming to cinemas this winter.

Vincent, a struggling art thief and failed artist, stole Malewitsch’s legendary abstract painting, The Black Square. The sale and handover to a Russian oligarch and his designated art expert Martha is set to take place on a cruise ship. Continue reading "#TIFF2021 market review: The Black Square" »

Berlin native Anja Marquardt shot the third season of the series “The Girlfriend Experience” for producer Steven Soderbergh. Berlin's Tagesspiegel talked with her about power relations in the U.S. streaming industry and life in two time zones.

Whether dating or streaming movies, our leisure behaviour is determined by algorithms. Every swipe, every click generates data that makes consumers even more transparent. Yet we’re ultimately often disappointed. Humans are still unfathomable creatures; preferences cannot be broken down to fixed criteria.

That’s why a service offered by the tech guru of a London start-up in the third season of the Starz series “The Girlfriend Experience” sounds so tempting: an algorithm that understands personal desires better than humans themselves. Neuroscientist Iris (Julia Goldani Telles) plays out the fantasies of her rich clients at night as a luxury escort. It’s basically the perfect dating app, smarter than the user.

“Of course, I wrote it with a sense of irony,” explains director Anja Marquardt in a Zoom interview. The “dating/streaming” association was obvious, though she didn’t want to take the joke too far. As a director, the optimization of our consumer behaviour is concerning to her. “We can only hope that at some point, when we’re all bored by the films the algorithm chooses, there’ll be a course correction.” Because the numbers are adamant, Marquardt explains. The industry has come to realize that series already generate the maximum number of subscriptions after two seasons. That’s why third seasons are being ordered less often. In this respect, too, “The Girlfriend Experience” is an exception. Continue reading "Hollywood discovers German women directors" »

Berlin directors Mohammed Abugeth & Daniel Carsenty on the TIFF 2021 world premiere of their documentary The Devil’s Drivers, in which they accompanied Bedouins smuggling Palestinian workers through the Negev desert for a decade.

Documentary Filmmaking & Storytelling with Daniel Carsenty
Saturday September 18, 1pm-3pm & Sunday September 19, 1pm-4pm

A digital workshop presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto & LIFT
with Toronto Arab Film & Toronto Palestine Film Festival
Daniel Carsenty is a Berlin filmmaker currently working at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

The documentary The Devil’s Drivers, co-directed by Berlin directors Daniel Carsenty & Mohammed Abugeth, is celebrating its world premiere at TIFF 2021. The Goethe-Institut Toronto showed the Canadian premiere of Carsenty’s debut, the refugee drama After Spring Comes Fall, in 2016 at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox. We are happy to engage Carsenty in a workshop for emerging and mid-career creatives. Continue reading "Documentary Filmmaking & Storytelling..." »

For seven years, “Oh Boy” director Jan-Ole Gerster suffered from a creative block, haunted by a compliment given to him by Michael Haneke. Then Gerster presents his latest film “Lara.” Alex Rühle met with him for coffee.

Seven years ago, “Oh Boy” premiered at the Munich Film Festival, the film by an unknown Berlin novice, shot in black and white, about a young, taciturn man who drifts through the German capital for a day, trying in vain to get a cup of coffee. The rest is history: Bavarian, German, European Film Awards, the little big film traveled around the world, director Jan-Ole Gerster traveled with it. And then, somehow, he was gone. Tom Schilling, his protagonist, who had played the aimless college dropout, then played one leading role after the other with determination, Woyzeck, Brecht, Kurt Barnert aka Gerhard Richter, but what is Jan-Ole Gerster actually up to? Continue reading "Lara: Haneke haunts Gerster" »

For Corinna Harfouch, the Karlovy Vary Film Festival was a comeback. In 1988, the incomparable German actress was at the international film festival in the Czech spa town with her feature film “The Actress" where she garnered the award for best actress. Thirty years later, in 2019, Harfouch returned to Karlovy Vary for the world premiere of “Lara.” It’s also director Jan-Ole Gerster’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut film “Oh Boy.”
Continue reading "Lara: The Nuanced Face of Corinna Harfouch" »

Together with film students at Babelsberg Film Academy, the “Workshop Film Festival Labour” of German media trade union ver.di is researching justice in the film festival sector and has for the first time presented the Fair Festival Award: The winner is 30-year-old Kinofest Lünen near Düsseldorf, just rebranded as KinoFilmFestLünen. The Porn Film Festival Berlin, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the Short Film Festival Hamburg, the International Women's Film Festival Dortmund/Cologne and the Film Festival Max Ophüls Preis also received the "Fair Festival" rating.
Continue reading "The fairest film festival is..." »

Much has been made of how uber-director Michael Haneke inspired director Jan-Ole Gerster to follow up his hit debut film Oh Boy with the poetic mother-son drama Lara. Here are four more in-front-of and behind-the-camera reasons to catch the Goethe-Institut's free Toronto premiere of this intense trans-generational drama at the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show on 11 August 2021 (get your free ticket registration early, will sell out):

Corinna Harfouch as Lara

Corinna Harfouch is one of Germany’s most respected actresses. You have seen her in Downfall, Jack, Finsterworld, Berlin Calling or Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Continue reading "4 reasons to catch LARA" »