German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

European Film Promotion (EFP) again partnered with the Berlinale to highlight 10 young European acting talents to be honored as the European Shooting Stars next month. German actor Louis Hofmann was selected as one of Europe's best talents -- and just received his first Oscar nomination. Our Italian Goethe-Institut colleagues caught up with the newcomer for a video interview in Berlin.

Already multi-award-winning 19-year-old wunderkind Louis Hofmann began his film career at the age of nine. In 2012, he received the Best Young Talent New Faces Award for the lead in Hermine Huntgeburth's TOM SAWYER, his film debut, while his performance in SANCTUARY by Marc Brummund earned him, among others, the 2015 Bavarian Film Prize as Best Newcomer Actor and the 2016 German Actor's Prize in the newcomer category.

Hofmann had his first international role in the Danish-German co-production LAND OF MINE by Martin Zandvliet -- the Danish Oscar® candidate for 2017 and out in Toronto soon thanks to Mongrel Media. Continue reading "#Berlinale & #Oscars: Louis Hofmann,..." »

German film has reason to party: Global comedy Sensation TONI ERDMANN by Maren Ade, currently playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Toronto, has been nominated for the 89th Academy Awards® in the category Best Foreign Language Film.

The German-international co-production LAND OF MINE by Martin Zandvliet, starring German "Shooting Star" Louis Hofmann --more here next week--, as the official Danish submission is also among the five films to receive a nomination in this category.

Düsseldorf composer Volker Bertelmann (alias Hauschka) is yet another Oscar® hopeful. He is nominated, together with Dustin O’Halloran, in the category Original Music for the Best Film nominee LION by Garth Davis.

All three of the above played TIFF 2016.
Continue reading "Major German Oscar noms 2017" »

The best reason to dust off my #TIFF16 review of every-award-winnning TONI ERDMANN is that is it finally hitting Canadian theatres, just in time for you to (re)catch it before the Oscars. In Toronto, Maren Ade's masterpiece --an alternately hilarious and mortifying comedy about the fraught relationship between a repressed corporate consultant and her incessantly prank-playing dad-- opens January 27 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Many superlatives have been surrounding Maren Ade’s Cannes surprise hit. An under-40 woman director, breaking the critics’ grid! Sold to 55 countries within days! FIPRESCI critics prize! German Oscar submission! Immediate BBC's 100 greatest films of the 21st century ranking! And that rare breed, an internationally transferrable German comedy.

Hype of that sort makes me skeptical. The fake teeth, whoopee cushion, wigs and pranks you read about. How does this not turn into mere slapstick but infuses 162 minutes of fiction with warm, intelligent, engaging and entertaining humour? You don't learn that skill in film school necessarily (although Ade went to a fine one, in Munich), you don't just happen to workshop and improv it either.
Continue reading "#TIFF16 review: Toni Erdmann" »

A young female director from Germany, a Georgian-German directorial duo, and an installation artist: the 33rd Sundance Film Festival (19 – 29 January 2017) is giving a platform – including prominent places in the Competition – to extremely diverse German filmmakers in nine German films and co-productions overall. 24-year-old writer-director-actress Helene Hegemann will be in the World Dramatic Competition with AXOLOTL OVERKILL, and the German-Georgian-French co-production MY HAPPY FAMILY by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross will also be in the running here. MANIFESTO by Berlin media artist Julian Rosefeldt (DE/AU/HK) is being shown in the Premieres sidebar.

Helene Hegemann, the author of the hotly debated hit novel "Axolotl Roadkill“, wrote the screenplay for the eponymous film and is also making her debut as the director of a feature film. She is the second female German director in a row --after Nicolette Krebitz with WILD-- to be invited to the Sundance World Dramatic Competition. Continue reading "Axolotl Overkill might be the strangest..." »

& more to come in the second half of the year!