We will wrap up our Berlinale reporting live with TIFF AD Cameron Bailey and programmers Andrea Picard and Magali Simard doing a post-mortem in a soon-to-be announced "Culture talks @ Goethe" on March 1. But before we speak and hear the final word on this year's Fest, we wanted to project where the new wave will take German film in the future. We asked young Berlin film programmer Diana Kluge to look at what the young German filmmakers in the festival's Perspektive section were up to and what the outlook for the next generation of filmmakers (and audiences) is:"FREE FALL was the title of the German Perspektive opening film at this year’s Berlinale and it proved to be a perfect description of the protagonists in the selected eight feature films and three documentaries. Standing at the cusp of a new beginning – the main characters of FREE FALL, SILVI and ENDZEIT are on a journey without safety net and in for a rather harsh landing. Even the production conditions mirror this, as SILVI and ENDZEIT did not receive public funding.
So what kind of stories do the young directors want to tell? First of all, this generation of filmmakers born in the mid-70s and early 80s, know their work and impress with high production values. Their stories are not new, but their fresh approaches makes it interesting to watch, in some cases only at the beginning though…
In FREE FALL, filmmaker and script writer Stephen Lacant places his coming-out story of a young man against the backdrop of a police milieu and tells this emotional rollercoaster with an emphasis on physicality. With Hanno Koffler, Max Riemelt and Katharina Schüttler, the director gathers some of the most talented young German actors in front of the camera. But soon the film loses its grip; strange dialogue and stereotypes making it difficult to follow the story with real empathy.
As much authenticity as possible is what filmmaker Nico Sommer seems to be looking for in his highly entertaining film SILVI. We follow the new start of 40-something Silvi --brilliantly played by Lina Wendel-- who got dumped by her husband of 15 years. The director follows the quest for a new partner with improvised scenes and interview sequences, where Silvi opens up in front of the camera. This powerful way of storytelling is reminiscent of Andreas Dresen’s early works such as GRILL POINT and makes the audience become an ally to the protagonist. It will be interesting to see whether Sommer will develop this way of storytelling into his particular style.
Authenticity is definitely not what director Sebastian Fritzsch had in mind with ENDZEIT. It all starts out very promisingly with an animated opening sequence that tells us about the end of the world through the eyes of a young girl. One of the few survivors, she tries to stay alive out in nature. Then she falls in love with a young man. It would have been a great opportunity to play with the idea what the future does to our relationships. Instead the film remains just a conventional love story between a man and a woman and a story about the harshness of staying alive.
And while life on earth is going on as usual, this year’s German Perspektive films are still a promising glimpse on a new generation of filmmakers. It seems to me that they just need to gain a little bit more of work (and life) experience in order to ground their stories more solidly and tell them in a way that fascinates the audience -- from beginning to end."
Diana Kluge is a Berlin-based professional film enthusiast who has been working as a programmer, coordinator and press agent for international and national film festivals for several years.
