8x Germany at Venice

HAPPY LAMENTO by New German Cinema's filmmaking icon Alexander Kluge and WHY ARE WE CREATIVE? THE CENTIPEDE’S DILEMMA by Hermann Vaske will be celebrating their world premieres in Venice's section of Special Events. In addition, the finalists in the competition for this year's LUX Prize of the European Parliament were announced. The much lauded refugee drama STYX by Wolfgang Fischer (DE/AT) is one of the three nominated films. The Venice Days are an independent section of the Venice International Film Festival. The programmed feature films are selected by an independent jury nominated by the Italian Association of Filmmakers and the Associazione 100autori.

About the films:

Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck won an Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Feature Film for Germany as well as many other international prizes for THE LIVES OF OTHERS. Inspired by true events, his new film NEVER LOOK AWAY passes through three periods in German history to recount the story of the dramatic life of the artist Kurt (Tom Schilling – OH BOY), his passionate love for Elisabeth (Paula Beer - FRANTZ) and the far-reaching relationship with his devious father-in-law Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch – HOMELAND, THE LIVES OF OTHERS) whose entanglement in the fateful events in Kurt's life ultimately comes to light in his art and paintings.

In AQUARELA, the feted documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakowsky (VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS!) sets off on an epic journey into the element of water. Filmed from an iceberg as it ruptures from the polar ice sheet and moves into the open sea, the film allows us to experience this life-giving power as well as water’s devastating force.

Interactive and innovative film experiences are provided by three up-and-coming German directors in the Venice Virtual Reality sidebar. ROOMS by Christian Zipfel, the first documentary 360° film, which was made at the Film University Babelsberg, lets the spectators immerse themselves in five different spatial realities. Max Sacker and Ioulia Isserlis' KOBOLD (AnotherWorld VR) is first a horror film and then an interactive VR (gaming) experience. MIND PALACE by Carl Krause and Dominik Stockhausen (Film Academy Baden-Württemberg) poses questions: Imagine you could look into the head of a loved one. What would you find there and how would it change you?

His film ARTISTS AT THE TOP OF THE BIG TOP: PERPLEXED won the Golden Lion in Venice in 1968, exactly 50 years ago, and he was honored with the Career Golden Lion in 1982. Alexander Kluge is now returning in 2018 to the Lido with HAPPY LAMENTO and says about his film: "This is an auteur film - like the ones I made in the past. At the same time, the film features the extraordinary young director Khavn De La Cruz from Manila. Taken together, the result is a music film of a special kind."

At heart, HAPPY LAMENTO is about electric light, the circus, the song “Blue Moon“ and street wars among children's gangs in North Manila. We see how the "circus" comes to town with the appearance of President Trump at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg. Helge Schneider appears as a human light snake. The dramatist Heiner Müller philosophizes about the moon. We hear a musical requiem for commodities that lie unpurchased on Saturday. We follow the dramatic evacuation of a circus in Russia that tries to save its elephants as it flees from the German tanks in 1941. Peaceful grooming of elephants in the early morning.

Hermann Vaske has been filming the world's most intriguing artists and thinkers for more than 30 years. WHY ARE WE CREATIVE? THE CENTIPEDE’S DILEMMA is a personal journey of discovery through the various facets of creativity: artistic, intellectual, philosophical and scientific.

Vaske approached a thousand creatives from various creative disciplines and more than 50 Oscar and Nobel Prize winners with the question: "Why are you creative?" A Who's Who of the world's best creatives: David Bowie, Ai Weiwei, Björk, Wim Wenders, Yoko Ono, David Lynch, Damien Hirst, Angelina Jolie, Nelson Mandela, Quentin Tarantino, Nick Cave, Neo Rauch, Stephen Hawking, the Dalai Lama, Marina Abramovic, Julian Schnabel, John Cleese, Vivienne Westwood, and many others. The answers Vaske received are as diverse and fascinating as his interlocutors and make the film into a pulsating hymn and an appeal to all that fulfills us the most and makes us human.


Overview of German Films & Co-Productions at Venice 2018

75th Venice International Film Festival
Venezia 75
NEVER LOOK AWAY (WERK OHNE AUTOR) by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
OUR TIME by Carlos Reygadas (MX/FR/DE/DK/SE)
Out of Competition
AQUARELA by Victor Kossakowsky (DE/GB/DK)
ISIS, TOMORROW. THE LOST SOULS OF MOSUL (VERLORENE SEELEN - DIE KINDER DER ISIS) by Francesca Mannocchi und Alessio Romenzi (IT/DE)

Orizzonti
STRIPPED by Yaron Shani (IL/DE)

Venice Classics
HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (DER GOLEM, WIE ER IN DIE WELT KAM) by Paul Wegener (Projektions-AG Union, 1920)

Venice Classics – Documentaries
LIVING THE LIGHT – ROBBY MÜLLER by Claire Pijman (NL/DE)

Venice Virtual Reality
KOBOLD by Max Sacker & Ioulia Isserlis
MIND PALACE by Carl Krause & Dominik Stockhausen
ROOMS by Christian Zipfel

Settimana della Critica
ADAM & EVELYN by Andreas Goldstein
THE ROUNDUP by Hajooj Kuka (SD/ZA/QA/DE)

Venice Days: Special Events
HAPPY LAMENTO by Alexander Kluge
WHY ARE WE CREATIVE? by Hermann Vaske

Venice Days: LUX PRIZE
STYX by Wolfgang Fischer (DE/AT)


source: German Films

photo: Tom Schilling and Paula Beer as Kurt und Elisabeth © 2018 BUENA VISTA INTERNATIONAL / PergamonFilm / Wiedemann & Berg Film