The documentary “Anderson” with its Berlinale 2014 premiere has only one protagonist, and Berlin director Annekatrin Hendel gives him room and a rope to hang himself. Sascha Anderson, born 1953, was the charismatic pop star of East Berlin’s oppositional literary scene in Prenzlauer Berg in the 1980s, a close acquaintance of famous GDR intellectuals such as Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller. And he was a zealous informer working for the Stasi, snitching on friends and colleagues.Hendel sat Sascha Anderson down before a camera 25 years later --in the original, temporarily relocated GDR kitchen that hosted many of the artist salons in the 1980s-- to ask him what prompted him to act as he did. The finely woven web of lies, half-truths and legends he unfurled around him still raises tempers (certainly with the audience in Berlin, who nearly started a riot in the post-screening Q&A). The music of celebrated Berlin electronica band To Rococo Rot happened to be playing at poet Bert Papenfuss’ bar "Rumbalotte” while Hendel was shooting there. When Hendel approached To Rococo Rot's Ronald and Robert Lippok to ask for their moral as much as legal permission to have their music score the film, the brothers were torn. As part of East Berlin's alternative music scene in the 80s, they themselves had been under Stasi scrutiny (Robert left the GDR for West Berlin in 1988). They agreed to leave their music in the film. I attended the premiere with Robert Lippok:
Robert, we just walked out of the old GDR cinema International after the “Anderson” premiere, the protagonist is in the audience, as are many of his former friends and victims. Was the film what you expected?
It was very interesting to see Sascha Anderson so close-up again. In the 80s, he was this "guru" who organized several events I was involved in in the East Berlin arts scene. I was a bit too young then to be treated as an equal by the group around Sascha though. Continue reading "#Berlinale '14 REVIEW: Watching..." »
Congratulations! The inaugural
Claudia Schmid, born in Cologne in 1956, studied at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna for a solo career as a flutist. She changed over to visual arts at the art Academies in Vienna and Dusseldorf. In 1991 Schmid began to work as a film author and director for German television. Over the years she has realized about 15 documentaries with a focus on artist portraits, among others “Attempts at Love - Werner Schroeter”, “The Silence of Innocence - The Artist Gottfried Helnwein”, “The Redrawn World - The Artist Heinz Emigholz" and her latest, “Richard Deacon - In Between”.
It was a successful 64th Berlinale for German films. German cinema already had a high profile in this year's Competition with four titles, and it also featured prominently among the prize-winners: a total of ten awards went to German films and co-productions at the weekend. Anna and Dietrich Brüggemann received the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay for STATIONS OF THE CROSS (KREUZWEG), which screened in the Competition. The film also won the Award of the Ecumenical Jury.
In the last part of a series of mini profiles on the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors that make the Berlinale every year, I am debriefing myself:
Mid-February 2014. Kabul: German foreign minister Steinmeier visits Karzai for a critical evaluation of Germany’s 12-year engagement in Afghanistan. Berlinale Palast: press screening of Feo Aladag’s Competition war drama “Inbetween Worlds”. The filmmaker, of outstanding debut film “When We Leave”, knew she was making a current events film open to extra attention and scrutiny when shooting in Afghanistan last year, under military and police protection. That it would have its world premiere at the Berlinale 2014 days after the German government announced an extension of its military involvement in the war-torn country (but ultimately also its dreaded/anticipated pending withdrawal), was an unintended publicity coup that not even puckish Berlinale boss Dieter Kosslick could have orchestrated.
Part of a series of mini profiles on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors.
To liven up the somewhat austere German art house discourse we are often engaging in at the Berlinale, let me show you another side of German cinema. Maximilian Erlenwein has delivered a good thriller before, "Gravity". With "Stereo" he has reached another level. For starters, top honours go to The Chau Ngo, who deserves to win every cinematography award around. He had me at the 007-style opening credits (I hope Berlinale juror Barbara Broccoli, aka James Bond's producer, watched the film).
Part of a series of mini profiles on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors. Starting off experimental filmmaker, executive director of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, TIFF Free Screen programmer and Goethe-Institut partner Chris Kennedy:
Part of a series of mini profiles on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, programmers, curators, industry promoters and visitors.
