Germany is opening TIFF 2013! Well, sort of. Bill Condon's (US)
Wikileaks thriller "The Fifth Estate" (which I pray is as good and relevant it has the potential to be) stars Britain's Benedict Cumberbatch and Germany's Daniel Brühl as the two leading men, infamous Julian Assange and his friend and WikiLeaks' spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg, on whose book the film is largely based (see
previous blog entry on 6 upcoming Brühl films). German IT specialist and transparency advocate Domscheit-Berg is an interesting character: married to Microsoft Germany's Government Relations officer, both prominent members of Germany's renegade "Pirate Party", and known mainly for his falling out with Assange over the leak guru's alleged authoritarian management style. Needless to say
WikiLeaks and Assange are not amused, as the Hollywood Reporter announced that producers DreamWorks and Disney are gearing up for a fight. THR quotes Assange as saying that "The movie is a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff" and presenting "lie upon lie". Seems like an apropos message control battle in the NSA World we now live in.
Watch the
trailer here, including a glimpse of Berlin's TV tower - the production shot a week in Berlin in January.
Brühl filled in after both Joel Kinnaman and James McAvoy dropped out due to other demands. Good for us, as we will see two well-known German actors --Moritz Bleibtreu (World War Z; Goethe!) is also on the cast-- in a major international production.
And that will be my main meme and theme this year, even more so than last year: The cultural and linguistic melange (or standardization?) international film has become with its cross-casting of actors from all corners of the globe.
Daniel Brühl will have the chance for new records on the red carpet on September 5th and I will ask him about his multilingual international roles. The flight over will be money well spent, given that he is also the lead in
TIFF's North American premiere of Ron Howard’s racing movie "Rush", which has its TIFF gala on 8 September. Here
Brühl is Austrian triple Formula 1 winning daredevil Niki Lauda, the hero of my childhood (now 65 in real life), up against his archrival as played by Australia's Chris Hemsworth.
Trailer 1.
Trailer 2.
Trailer 3. Not sure about Brühl's Austrian-English accent here, but let's watch the film first.
Again Daniel Brühl is not the lone German on the project but joined by Alexandra Maria Lara ("The Reader").
Indiewire's Peter Knegt went as far two weeks ago as to put both films on his
"Could Easily Be Major Oscar Contenders" list. Which might be a bit premature, as he admits. But we would take an acting award for Bruehl.
As an antidote to "Rush", enjoy
Edgar Reitz' latest (and last) pensive "Heimat" instalment, just out of competition at Venice and programmed at TIFF Masters as "Home from Home -- Chronicle of a Vision". A film that should resonate with Canadians as it focuses on the question of should-I-stay-or-should-I-go, albeit in a 19th century migration context.
Trailer 1 &
trailer 2.
Reitz said about his ambitious decades-spanning project (and his approach to filmmaking in general):
"One of the most important experiences in my life has been that time passes mercilessly. The happy hour we all long for is already gone by the time we start to recognize it. Misery too comes and goes and leaves us nonplussed. Only art manages to lend a certain duration to the moment. The beauty about the camera is that is copies and saves time. We filmmakers thus have a tool, an instrument, that magically empowers us to capture fleeting life. My motto is: Don't try to rush ahead of life, but stay awake and alert so as to not fall behind. Always try to keep pace with life so that you learn to describe it with your camera."
Remember "A Year Ago in Winter" at TIFF 2008? Set for a coveted first-day spot in the festival is
Caroline Link's new coming-of-age/father-son drama "Exit Marrakech" (also see
previous blog entry). After its Munich Film Festival premiere a few weeks ago, Germany's FAZ newspaper raved about "a
gripping love story, intoxicating" and praised young Samuel Schneider (as son Ben) as the great discovery of the film. Berlin's Tagesspiegel called it "stunning" but also "sentimental". We're certainly in for big images and big emotions. Link, who famously did not pick up her 2003 Oscar for "Nowhere in Africa" because her daughter was sick at the time (still waiting for a male director to show those kinds of guts in their work-life priority setting), frankly reported in Munich that she was drawn to Marrakech before she even had a story for the film.
Going by the
B roll or the recent 10-page ZEIT Magazine
set report, there are easier, less hot and sandy shoots out there. But then this is what the
end result looks like. So waiting for Caroline Link and Ulrich Tukur on the red carpet. And, I am nearly ecstatic to report, at the Goethe-Institut as well:
6 September Goethe Director's Talk: Caroline Link in conversation with Ruba Nadda (details late August).
Somewhat blinded by the big guns, I haven't even started to tell you about the brilliance that will be TIFF's Wavelength again:
For one, finally finally,
Ramon Zürcher's Berlinale hit "
Strange Little Cat", which, if you were listening closely at our
post-Berlinale talk with my TIFF programmer colleagues in February, they as good as announced wanting to book for September. The young Swiss-German filmmaker is coming to the festival. Experimental master Helga Fanderl returns to Toronto's screens, as does Ulrich Seidl with "Paradise: Hope" (which Sight & Sound) recently called "surprisingly humane and warm"). Overall, a very impressive European Wavelength line-up again that promises (and will likely keep delivering) the best TIFF experiences and controvercies -- the latter perhaps with Philip Gröning's much debated
"The Police Officer's Wife", also fresh from Venice.
I kept the personally most exciting TIFF news for last. Nina Könnemann's beautiful, humorous short film
"Bann", which I wrote about in the spring, will be shown at Jackman Hall on 8 September. A month later,
we will give you the opportunity to talk to Nina in person, as she is our InterMedia Artist-in-Residence 2013 at OCADU and the University of Toronto.
Worth a footnote:
Tom Tykwer, at TIFF last year with "Cloud Atlas" (which I
loved) and working on a new film with Tom Hanks (Dave Eggers’ "Hologram for the King"), must have liked it here because he as back as a TIFF Industry
Talent Lab speaker.
Next week I will surprise you (and at this point myself) with more of our Goethe Directors Talks during TIFF. Overall I am counting
two dozen German films and co-productions at TIFF13 -- happy TIFF scheduling everyone!
by Jutta Brendemühl
