Picking up the threads from my blog entry on the
elder stateswoman of German film, Margarethe von Trotta, the good news from female German
Regisseurinnen this year does not abade. I am already looking back at an impressive array of artists I've covered and presented last year --
Maria Speth, Corinna Schnitt, Isabell Spengler, writer Heide Schwochow, Hannah Leonie Prinzler, Lynne Marsh--, and the future is bright with several intriguing films in production and of course the never-before-seen Cannes success of Maren Ade's TONI ERDMANN (see the current quirky
Cinema Scope cover).
My money is on a TIFF North American premiere.
Also considered Berlin School,
Angela Schanelec (MARSEILLE) has THE DREAMED PATH (DER TRAUMHAFTE WEG) ready for the festival circuit, a film about powerlessness and happiness. Greece 1984. Kenneth, a young Brit, and Theres, a German woman, busk to pay for their holiday. They are in love. When Kenneth hears the news that his mother has died, he abruptly leaves without Theres. Realizing how much he needs Theres, he tries to win her back, unsuccessfully. 30 years later, in Berlin, Ariane separates from her husband David. Eventually, the two couples' lives intersect. Starring Maren Eggert, Luise Heyer, Thorbjörn Björnsson, Phil Hayes.
On with the next generation of female directors:
Controversial 23-year-old author, actor, director Helene Hegemann is turning her teen coming-of-age debut novel “Axolotl Roadkill" into "Axolotl Blockbuster”,
plagiarism scandals not withstanding. Watch it if you feel up to heroin, techno and suicide.
Writer-director Johanna Pauline Maier takes a trip in her sophomore film EINE REISE, a German-French journey of self-discovery, which will be her graduation film from the University of Television & Film Munich. A German woman, Anna, is in the middle of a life crisis when she takes off for Paris to restart her life. Once there, she keeps meeting people who claim to already know her, but then Anna meets a woman who seems to be her spitting image.
Shot over three weeks in Paris with a bilingual cast and crew, the film will be in cinemas in September.
Veteran Doris Dörrie has a film in the works after being lauded for GREETINGS FROM FUKUSHIMA at the Berlinale: LUPITA AND HER SISTERS takes Dörrie back to Mexico in what sounds like a
variation on the female-mariachi theme in her last (mediocre) documentary QUE CARAMBA ES LA VIDA. Here, young Lupita abandons the quiet rural life with her family and moves to Mexico City in order to fulfill her dream: She wants to become a famous wrestler, a
luchadora.
Also
associated with the Berlin School is Isabelle Stever, whose THE WEATHER INSIDE is out, “a surprising look at the business of foreign aid work with a powerful performance by
Maria Furtwängler and the support of Jim Broadbent." Dorothea, an aid worker with a humanitarian organization, has launched a project to help the people of a land menaced by civil war. The luxury of her wealthy world finds a cynical reflection in the poverty evident all around. She embarks upon an affair with the much younger Alec, who seems to be simply an attractive 24-year-old Arab drifter. Their two worlds collide, impelled by their mutual lust for adventure. What appears to be reality becomes unbalanced, raising the question of having and being. Who exactly is helping whom? As her passion increases, Dorothea loses control, jeopardizing not only the project but also her life.
Stever got good reviews for BLESSED EVENTS at the Toronto International Film Festival five years ago.
Repeat #TIFF16?
by
Jutta Brendemühl
image: Schanelec "Der Traumhafte Weg" c Filmgalerie 451
