Continuing with the ever popular upcoming literary adaptations, let’s start with the big one I’ve been following here since last year: Wim Wenders --newly minted opera director with the first opera he ever saw, Bizet's “Les Pêcheurs de Perles” , to be conducted by Daniel Barenboim at Berlin's State Opera next year-- has set the release date for THE BEAUTIFUL DAYS OF ARANJUEZ, the 3-D romantic drama that follows in the footsteps of last year’s EVERY THING WILL BE FINE, for June 1, which I sure hope will mean an international premiere at TIFF in September.
Tuesday, April 5. 2016
Watch the book: New German films
Continuing with the ever popular upcoming literary adaptations, let’s start with the big one I’ve been following here since last year: Wim Wenders --newly minted opera director with the first opera he ever saw, Bizet's “Les Pêcheurs de Perles” , to be conducted by Daniel Barenboim at Berlin's State Opera next year-- has set the release date for THE BEAUTIFUL DAYS OF ARANJUEZ, the 3-D romantic drama that follows in the footsteps of last year’s EVERY THING WILL BE FINE, for June 1, which I sure hope will mean an international premiere at TIFF in September.
Written by Wenders’ friend and long-time collaborator Peter Handke, the award-winning Austrian author-translator, the German-French co-production was filmed in France and stars Reda Kateb, Sophie Semin (Handke’s wife), Jens Harzer and Wenders’ friend Nick Cave. Set in modern-day Aranjuez in Spain, the film unveils a story about moral conflicts and intimate relationships.
To see Wenders’ next film, the romantic thriller SUBMERGENCE with James McAvoy and fresh Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, we will have to wait till 2017. “The perfect cast for this once in a generation love story: highly sensitive, passionate and fiercely committed,” enthused the director. The script is based on J.M. Ledgard’s New York Times bestseller, which Wenders calls “an utterly contemporary story, thrilling and deeply moving at the same time, spanning continents and oceans, facing two big threats to our world today: climate change and terrorism.” Shooting has just started in Spain, Germany and France.
And I am hoping for another TIFF premiere by a German arthouse great: the previously mentioned “Tschick“, Fatih Akin’s latest coming-of-age road movie based on W. Herrndorf’s hit novel, which will hit German cinemas on 15 September.
Actor-writer-director Maria Schrader has BEFORE DAWN in the works. It charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish-Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home. Starring Charlie Hübner, who is busy with two other films, see below.
A few more books-on-film don’t have concrete dates yet but are announced for this year, such as Swiss director Alain Gsponer’s YOUTH WITHOUT GOD adapted from Ödön von Horváth. This will be the 5th filmic treatment of the book the Nazis outlawed. Horváth himself was in discussions with Robert Siodmak to make a screen version, but the author died in an accident in 1938 and Siodmak dropped the project.
Anton Tschechow’s classic UNCLE WANJA will be director Anna Martinetz’ debut feature, a hybrid of staged scenes as well as documentary and archival images.
At the Berlinale, I ran into actor-director Sebastian Schipper (VICTORIA) and should have asked him about a date for his next film DENIAL, his English-language debut based on Jessica Stern’s “Denial: A Memoir of Terror”. In it, the terrorism expert describes her and her sister’s post-rape traumatic stress syndrome. The script is said to be well under way for this “very dark and very strong story” (Schippert).
Next month Arne Feldhusen is starting to put Sven Regener’s pop novel MAGICAL MISTERY on film. Charly Hübner and Martin Wuttke (both of whom could be seen in films we presented at the last European Union Film Festival Toronto), star in the story of Karl Schmidt, who finds himself in rehab when his old raver buddies take him away on a trip down 1990s techno memory lane. Popular musician-author Regener and director Leander Haußmann (SONNENALLEE) created a German cult classic and captured the feeling of a generation with BERLIN BLUES (aka HERR LEHMANN) in 2003.
For German public broadcaster ARD, the Martin Suter crime thrillers around reluctant detective Allmen will also everybody who is somebody in German screen acting, from DOWNFALL’s Heino Ferch and CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA’s Hanns Zischler to Samuel Finzi and Adrea Osvárt. Impoverished gentleman Johann Friedrich von Allmen peddles in not always legitimately acquired art works. After a customer is murdered and he himself is threatened, he and his butler Carlos start to investigate.
Christmas time in Germany is traditionally (fairy) tale time, this year with two decidedly Faustian projects. Your second chance to see Charly Hübner will be this winter in Andreas Dresen’s TIMM THALER remake, scheduled for 22 December 2016. It is a new version of James Krüss’ children’s book classic. 13-year-old Timm enters a fatal pact, selling his charming smile to an evil baron. In return, he is supposed to get help in saving his family from demise. Starring the creme-de-la-creme of German character actors like Axel Prahl, Steffi Kühnert (both previous Dresen actors), Justus von Dohnányi, and Nadja Uhl. The first 13-part Timm Thaler series from 1979 made German TV history and was dubbed by the BBC as THE LEGEND OF TIM TYLER.
Johannes Naber —we showed you his previous German Film Award winner AGE OF CANNIBALS, my Berlinale 2013 highlight, in our Toronto GOETHE FILMS series-- does Wilhelm Hauff for the holidays. THE COLD HEART tells about the love between Peter (VICTORIA’s Frederick Lau, fresh off DJ duties at Berlinale parties) and Lisbeth (Henriette Confurius of BELOVED SISTERS). She is privileged, he is penniless. So Peter enters into a pact with the evil Holländer-Michel (Moritz Bleibtreu of INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) who switches his heart for a stone.
While you're waiting for these releases: Read the films.
by Jutta Brendemühl
image: Submergence script c Wim Wenders
To see Wenders’ next film, the romantic thriller SUBMERGENCE with James McAvoy and fresh Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, we will have to wait till 2017. “The perfect cast for this once in a generation love story: highly sensitive, passionate and fiercely committed,” enthused the director. The script is based on J.M. Ledgard’s New York Times bestseller, which Wenders calls “an utterly contemporary story, thrilling and deeply moving at the same time, spanning continents and oceans, facing two big threats to our world today: climate change and terrorism.” Shooting has just started in Spain, Germany and France.
And I am hoping for another TIFF premiere by a German arthouse great: the previously mentioned “Tschick“, Fatih Akin’s latest coming-of-age road movie based on W. Herrndorf’s hit novel, which will hit German cinemas on 15 September.
Actor-writer-director Maria Schrader has BEFORE DAWN in the works. It charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish-Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home. Starring Charlie Hübner, who is busy with two other films, see below.
A few more books-on-film don’t have concrete dates yet but are announced for this year, such as Swiss director Alain Gsponer’s YOUTH WITHOUT GOD adapted from Ödön von Horváth. This will be the 5th filmic treatment of the book the Nazis outlawed. Horváth himself was in discussions with Robert Siodmak to make a screen version, but the author died in an accident in 1938 and Siodmak dropped the project.
Anton Tschechow’s classic UNCLE WANJA will be director Anna Martinetz’ debut feature, a hybrid of staged scenes as well as documentary and archival images.
At the Berlinale, I ran into actor-director Sebastian Schipper (VICTORIA) and should have asked him about a date for his next film DENIAL, his English-language debut based on Jessica Stern’s “Denial: A Memoir of Terror”. In it, the terrorism expert describes her and her sister’s post-rape traumatic stress syndrome. The script is said to be well under way for this “very dark and very strong story” (Schippert).
Next month Arne Feldhusen is starting to put Sven Regener’s pop novel MAGICAL MISTERY on film. Charly Hübner and Martin Wuttke (both of whom could be seen in films we presented at the last European Union Film Festival Toronto), star in the story of Karl Schmidt, who finds himself in rehab when his old raver buddies take him away on a trip down 1990s techno memory lane. Popular musician-author Regener and director Leander Haußmann (SONNENALLEE) created a German cult classic and captured the feeling of a generation with BERLIN BLUES (aka HERR LEHMANN) in 2003.
For German public broadcaster ARD, the Martin Suter crime thrillers around reluctant detective Allmen will also everybody who is somebody in German screen acting, from DOWNFALL’s Heino Ferch and CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA’s Hanns Zischler to Samuel Finzi and Adrea Osvárt. Impoverished gentleman Johann Friedrich von Allmen peddles in not always legitimately acquired art works. After a customer is murdered and he himself is threatened, he and his butler Carlos start to investigate.
Christmas time in Germany is traditionally (fairy) tale time, this year with two decidedly Faustian projects. Your second chance to see Charly Hübner will be this winter in Andreas Dresen’s TIMM THALER remake, scheduled for 22 December 2016. It is a new version of James Krüss’ children’s book classic. 13-year-old Timm enters a fatal pact, selling his charming smile to an evil baron. In return, he is supposed to get help in saving his family from demise. Starring the creme-de-la-creme of German character actors like Axel Prahl, Steffi Kühnert (both previous Dresen actors), Justus von Dohnányi, and Nadja Uhl. The first 13-part Timm Thaler series from 1979 made German TV history and was dubbed by the BBC as THE LEGEND OF TIM TYLER.
Johannes Naber —we showed you his previous German Film Award winner AGE OF CANNIBALS, my Berlinale 2013 highlight, in our Toronto GOETHE FILMS series-- does Wilhelm Hauff for the holidays. THE COLD HEART tells about the love between Peter (VICTORIA’s Frederick Lau, fresh off DJ duties at Berlinale parties) and Lisbeth (Henriette Confurius of BELOVED SISTERS). She is privileged, he is penniless. So Peter enters into a pact with the evil Holländer-Michel (Moritz Bleibtreu of INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) who switches his heart for a stone.
While you're waiting for these releases: Read the films.
by Jutta Brendemühl
image: Submergence script c Wim Wenders
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