Four German filmmakers in the Competition, another one with a Berlinale Special Gala, Tom Tykwer as the president of the International Jury, new film talents in Perspektive Deutsches Kino. The 68th Berlin International Film Festival (15 – 25 February 2018) shapes up to be an extraordinarily strong German year.
German competition titles
An impressive German presence in the Competition of the 2018 Berlinale with films by
Emily Atef, Thomas Stuber, Philip Gröning and Christian Petzold.
In 1981, international star Romy Schneider spends time with her old friend Hilde at a spa hotel in Quiberon on the coast of Brittany to escape the daily pressures of her life. Hilde is supposed to be supporting Romy in an interview with the famous German magazine Stern. However, a cat-and-mouse game then ensues over the course of three days between the reporter and the actress. Marie Bäumer (THE TASTE OF APPLE SEEDS) is Romy Schneider in Emily Atef's 3 DAYS IN QUIBERON (DE/AT/FR, Rohfilm Factory), with Birgit Minichmayr (EVERYONE ELSE), Robert Gwisdek (TIGER GIRL) and Charly Hübner (STEFAN ZWEIG – FAREWELL TO EUROPE) in other roles. Emily Atef received multiple international awards for her previous feature films THE STRANGER IN ME and KILL ME.
Introverted Christian discovers love, friendship and a whole new and mysterious world between the aisles of a wholesale market. Sandra Hüller (TONI ERDMANN) and Peter Kurth (BABYLON BERLIN, A HEAVY HEART) are among the cast appearing opposite this year's German SHOOTING STAR Franz Rogowski (HAPPY END, LOVE STEAKS) in Thomas Stuber's second feature film IN THE AISLES. His feature film debut A HEAVY HEART had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and received the German Film Award in Silver.
Philip Gröning's THE POLICE OFFICER'S WIFE had its world premiere in the competition at Venice and received the Special Jury Prize there. His new feature film MY BROTHER'S NAME IS ROBERT AND HE IS AN IDIOT (DE/CH/FR), which will have its world premiere in Berlin asks: What is the nature of time? For the teenage twins Robert and Elena, a weekend can seem endless yet still fly by. Time almost stands still while discussing philosophy, lying in a blissful cornfield near a remote gas station. They are in their own little world, a twin world of twin games and twin love. A confined world where emotions rise, where pressure mounts into rage… The turmoil of adolescence. Nature, time, love, death.
The fourth German director this year's competition is Christian Petzold – who was at festivals around the globe with PHOENIX and very successful in the American and French cinemas, among others. His new film TRANSIT (DE/FR) presents a timeless variation on the story of exile in Anna Segher's eponymous novel. Franz Rogowski can be seen here in his second lead role in a Berlinale competition film alongside Paula Beer (FRANTZ). Georg, a German refugee, manages to escape to Marseille as German troops are approaching Paris. In Marseille, only those who can prove they will leave, may remain. Visas for possible host countries, transit visas, and those scarce tickets for passage by ship are much needed. Georg assumes the identity of a deceased writer who had a visa for Mexico.
German world premieres in other sections
THE SILENT REVOLUTION by Lars Kraume (THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER) will have its world premiere in a prominent slot of the Berlinale Special Gala sidebar. The film is set in 1956 in the GDR. Kurt and Theo are classmates and best friends. They are about to finish school in Stalinstadt. On one of their secret excursions to West Berlin to go to the movies, they see disturbing pictures of an uprising in Hungary in the newsreel Wochenschau. The students are impressed by the young Hungarians, who fight for their freedom and they decide to show their solidarity. In class, they hold a minute´s silence in honor of the victims. Little do they know how much trouble their seemingly harmless act of solidarity will mean for their future…
Hans Weingartner (THE EDUKATORS) will be opening Generation 14plus with 303, the story of the two students Jule and Jan setting off together from Berlin in an old camper van on a road trip to the south, but for different reasons.
The opening film of Panorama Special will be STYX by Wolfgang Fischer (DE/AT). It describes the transformation of a strong woman, who is torn from her contented world during a sailing trip, and tells about a fight for love and survival in a cruel parallel world between North Africa and Europe which calls victims every day.
The Berlinale Series sidebar will include the German series BAD BANKS (DE/ LU), which focuses on a talented and very ambitious young woman (Paula Beer) and gives an inside view of an unscrupulous, profit-oriented world of high finance. Greed, egoism, the pressure to succeed and machismo dominate their daily work routine between Frankfurt and Luxemburg. Christian Schwochow (PAULA) directed, with Oliver Kienle as showrunner.
A special platform for the next generation of German filmmakers is provided by the Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar. It will open this year with AWAY YOU GO by Philipp Eichholtz, who is also - alongside the German actors Louis Hofmann and Tim Kalkhof - one of the 10 Europeans to Watch selected by the trade magazine Variety.
The full Berlinale program will be released on 6 February 2018.
source:
German Films
Image: c Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin/Velvet Creative Office
