With cinemas and film festivals in Canada, Germany and across the world currently closed or postponing their live programming, we are discovering the virtues of streaming. Among the offerings, one of the best is
Kanopy. The platform is an award-winning video streaming service providing access to more than 30,000 independent and documentary films ─ titles of unique social and cultural value from The Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, Media Education Foundation, and thousands of independent filmmakers.
You can use it for free for example through many public library cards in Canada and elsewhere. Download the Kanopy app, log in with your (also free) library account, and a portal of high-quality global content awaits.
To sift through the catalogue, I will curate a little series of my personal film recommendations here and on social media #MyKanopyKanon. #Docs #features #shorts #femalefilmmakers #arthouse #mainstream ... Let me know your favourites and film viewing experiences and let's turn social distancing into social connecting.
☆ "Coming Out" by Heiner Carow was East Germany’s first, and due to the course of history last queer film: It opened on 9 November 1989, the night the Berlin wall came down, and went down in cinematic history alongside it. The
opening scene of this daring relationship drama alone will get you hooked.
☆ Here's a revolutionary double bill (if not triple, together with the previous recommendation):
"The Young Karl Marx" is August Diehl --well trained in Marxist talk from RAF drama "If Not Us, Who?"-- alongside a young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske from "Das Boot"), living, working and revolutionizing together between Paris, Brussels, and London. If you like Vicky Krieps in my last recommendation "Gutland": She plays Engels' wife. Also on the cast list: Alexander Scheer, who won the German Film Award as "Gundermann" and was nominated for a European Best Actor Film Award. Finally, the director's track record should convince you to watch:
Raoul Peck previously created the much lauded "I Am Not Your Negro."
☆ You might remember that Marx had a whole GDR city named after him.
In the documentary "Karl Marx City," (now again Chemnitz) East German filmmaker Petra Epperlein investigates her father's 1999 suicide. Was he involved with the Stasi? Is she remembering a childhood that didn't exist? The intriguing and formally innovative dissection of a family's history and narrative had its world premiere at TIFF 2016 and is worth a watch as we're about to commemorate German reunification this year.
☆ The documentary "Overgames" is another film that won the Goethe Film Prize at Dok Leipzig (I recommended "Exit" last time). Renowned documentarian Lutz Dammbeck dives deep into how US-style talkshow formats conquered post-war Germany. A film about fun and serious games, therapies for re-education, as well as the history of the idea of permanent revolution. Those appearing include directors and producers of game shows, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and the diversely paranoid. If this sounds wild, it is.
More recommendations next week, stay safe & keep watching!
by
@JuttaBrendemuhl
image: still from "Overgames" by Lutz Dammbeck
