The Berlinale has been under fire for a while (not to say forever), most recently for too much/too little glamour, too much/too little arthouse/female filmmakers/exciting fare, but nearly always for too few German films in competition. This year, if I was a betting woman, I would put money on the following films to be featured prominently in Dieter Kosslick’s last-but-one Berlinale, which could make it a stellar (male) German arthouse director year.
Many will call this a safe bet: WERK OHNE AUTOR (no English title yet) by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, delayed in production due to illness in 2017, should be ready for the Berlinale 2018. In the much anticipated follow-up drama to Oscar winner THE LIVES OF OTHERS (we will gloss over THE TOURIST here), German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in the West, but is still tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime. Come for European Actress 2017 nominee
Paula Beer (interview), stay for Tom Schilling, Lars Eidinger, and Sebastian Koch (returning after THE LIVES OF OTHERS).
My biggest new year’s wish: For Christian Petzold to have finished “Transit,”
which he announced in our
Goethe Film Talk in late 2014. Based on Anna Seghers’ 1944 book, Petzold again tackles Nazi history (see PHOENIX) and the fate of war refugees. After the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, refugees attempted to flee through Marseille. Franz Rogowski’s character portrays a man on the run from the Germans, who assumes the identity of a dead writer. Arriving in Marseille, he meets and falls in love with the writer’s unsuspecting widow (Paula Beer) who wants to start a new life in South America. This would hopefully be your second chance to see Paula Beer, alongside an all-star cast of everybody's new darling Franz Rogowski, and veteran stars Matthias Brandt and Justus von Dohnányi (plus my cousin
Alex Brendemühl (interview), who was in last year's Berlinale opener).
Lars Kraume continues to be hugely successful internationally with THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER (which he discussed as our guest in our
Goethe Film Talk in late 2014), followed by several well-received productions (FAMILIENFEST; THE VERDICT) and is
back with DAS SCHWEIGENDE KLASSENZIMMER -- just announced as a Berlinale Special Gala world premiere as I am writing this. Veteran actor Burghart Klaußner returns from having worked with Kraume on FRITZ BAUER as well as THE VERDICT. Kraume adds Petzold regular Roland Zehrfeld (BARBARA; PHOENIX) as well as Lena Klenke, the brilliant Jördis Triebel (WEST), and Michael Gwisdek (GOOD BYE, LENIN!; OH BOY) in this historical drama. In 1956, a high school graduating class holds a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Hungarian Revolution and triggers the political pressure of the GDR. Against all resistance, the pupils flee to West Germany. Based on a true story and written by one of the students, Kraume continues to investigate Germany's troubled and violent 20th century history.
Is it finally time for 3-time Oscar nominee
Terrence Malick’s RADEGUND, a Berlin-shot US production? A mind-boggling German all-star team of August Diehl, Alexander Fehling (both in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Jürgen Prochnow (REMEMBER), Maria Simon (GOOD BYE LENIN!), Sophie Rois, Martin Wuttke, Ulrich Matthes, Franz Rogowski (see above) and Bruno Ganz (DOWNFALL; REMEMBER) unite with Michael Nyqvist and Matthias Schoenaerts. What could possibly go wrong. In this biopic, opening at Jägerstätter’s home in the idyllic Austrian countryside, we follow Franz and his wife Fani along their path of resistance against the Nazis. Told through real wartime letters, the love story finds the couple in conflict with the members of their close-knit town, their church, their government and even their friends – all of which brings them to a dramatic choice.
Andreas Dresen (interview) began his career at the “reunited” Berlinale 1993 with his masterpiece SILENT COUNTRY, I hope he returns with GUNDERMANN, another biopic about the contradictory life of GDR songwriter and excavator driver Gerhard Gundermann. Dresen is working with some of his favourite actors, Milan Peschel (STOPPED ON TRACK) and Axel Prahl (WILLENBROCK) adding Alexander Scheer, Peter Schneider, Leni Wesselman.
Staying in East Germany yet again, Thomas Stuber adapted Leipzig author Clemens Meyer’s touching drama A HEAVY HEART and has just finished IN THE AISLES -- just confirmed for the Berlinale Competition before I got to press "post" on this article. The comedy-drama tells of a tender love affair which flourishes within the protected cosmos of a superstore within an atmosphere of close family relationships, but without a chance outside the store. Starring Sandra Hüller (TONI ERDMANN), Peter Kurth (the star of A HEAVY HEART) … and yet again Franz Rogowski. The screenplay was awarded the German Screenplay Prize in 2015. He will be going up against Philip Gröning (THE POLICE OFFERICER'S WIFE), who enters the Competition with the unusually cheerfully titled MY BROTHER'S NAME IS ROBERT AND HE IS AN IDIOT, a German-French-Swiss co-production. The world premiere will star Josef Mattes, Julia Zange, Urs Jucker, Stefan Konarske, Zita Aretz, Karolina Porcari, Vitus Zeplichal.
Could Sandra Nettelbeck (MOSTLY MARTHA) as the lone established female director with a new film make it into a sidebar of the Berlinale with a family comedy? In WHAT DOESN'T KILL US, Maximilian has enough problems as is: a divorced father of two teenage daughters with a enraged ex-wife, he is a popular psychotherapist who increasingly finds himself less able to help his patients. His world falls apart when Sophie, a foley artist with a gambling problem and an abusive boyfriend, turns up late for her appointment at his office. Starring Christian Berkel, Johnna ter Steege, Victoria Mayer, Sophie Rois (you will remember the stage actress from Tom Tykwer's THREE).
Speaking of female directors and of the Berlinale competition, perhaps this will do: Margarethe von Trotta is finishing INGMAR BERGMANN – VERMAECHTNIS EINES JAHRHUNDERTGENIES (Legacy of a 20th Century Genius). Internationally renowned (New German Cinema) director von Trotta takes a closer look at Bergman's life and work and explores his film legacy with Bergman's closest collaborators, both in front and behind the camera, as well as a new generation of filmmakers. The documentary presents key scenes, recurring themes in his films and his life, and journeys to the places at the center of Bergman's creative achievement and the focal points of his life such as the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, locations and landscapes from his masterpieces, and the stations from his career in Sweden, France and Germany.
She might be joined by veteran Wim Wenders, who just accompanied the 226th pope in POPE FRANCIS: A MAN OF HIS WORD, his latest documentary.
Lo-fi director Jakob Lass (very violent and very good TIGER GIRL; LOVE STEAKS) has a new film coming out, RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW that should be Perspektive Deutsches Kino. On New Year's Eve in Hamburg, a young club owner is struggling to keep the party going when a violent ex-pimp, the police, a former rock star and the love of his life are all coming for him.
The (improvised book adaptation) comedy stars Corinna Harfouch, Bela B. (of German fun punk band Die Aerzte), Lana Cooper, David Schütter.
Finally, there are some international productions with German ingredients I have bookmarked to check for Berlinale:
Marcus H. Rosenmüller (we just showed you his classic GRAVE DECISIONS in our GOETHE FILMS series) revisits the best sport ever in a UK-German co-production: TRAUTMANN tells the story of the legendary German-born goalkeeper Bernd ‘Bert’ Trautmann. David Kross plays Trautmann, who was a goalee for Manchester City from 1949 to 1964 and famously played the FA Cup Final with a broken neck, with Freya Mavor cast as the love of his life, Margaret, the daughter of his coach. Described by another Man City goalie Joe Corrigan as
“one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time”, Trautman received Germany’s Order of Merit in 1997 and an honorary OBE from the Queen in 2004.
Bavarian director Marcus ‘Rosi’ Rosenmüller is making his English-language debut with actors Harry Melling (HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX), Gary Lewis, Dervla Kirwan.
Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (DOWNSIZING) might have finished directing (his debut) and starring in GEORGETOWN alongside Annette Bening, Vanessa Redgrave, and Marie Dame. Inspired by the true story of Albrecht Muth, who was convicted in 2011 for murdering his much older socialite wife in Washington, D.C. --one of the city’s most sensational scandals of recent times-- the film tells the story of an unconventional love affair, an outsider striving for acceptance and the desperate struggle for significance.
Bottom line:
Biopics (4x), Nazis and the GDR (4x), and The Year of Franz Rogowski (3x) are my predictions.
by
Jutta Brendemühl 
