Nothing seems to stop veteran and newcomer female directors (and actors) from being ready with new projects post-Covid. Here are a few of my most awaited 2021/22 titles.
Emily Atef is about to shoot "More Than Ever" starring Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”), a co-production between France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Norway that the “3 Days in Quiberon” director also co-wrote. The melodrama will revolve around the character of Hélène, a well-off Parisian, who turns her back on a comfortable life and loving husband and heads to a remote Norwegian village when she is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. “A strong female story in which the protagonist’s life has hit a crunch point. It’s a beautiful, powerful tale about a woman striking out on her own and then asking for acceptance,” commented producer Xenia Maingot about Atef’s first French-language production. The female creative team also includes production designer Silke Fischer (“Unorthodox,” “Toni Erdmann,” “3 Days In Quiberon”) and costume designer Dorothée Guiraud (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”).
Vicky Krieps II:
After dedicating films to female fighters like Hannah Arendt, Rosa Luxemburg and Hildegard von Bingen, Margarethe von Trotta is preparing a biopic about Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann and her uncompromising relationship with much older Swiss author Max Frisch in “Bachmann & Frisch,” following the artist from Berlin to Zürich, Rome and Egypt. The German-Austrian-Luxembourgish co-pro features Bachmann’s (Krieps) radical texts and readings, which encapsulate the motto of her literature and her life: "Truth is reasonable for man". "The starting point was the question of what was actually going on with the relationship between Bachmann and Frisch, why, for example, no joint photographs exist. What happened in the four years that this relationship lasted?" commented producer Katrin Renz. I hope the film will be ready for the Berlinale 2022.
Staying with writers and their relationships: Austrian director
Barbara Albert and co-creator David Dietl are turning Thomas Pletzinger’s bestselling meta novel “Funeral For A Dog” into an eight-part Sky series, slated for 2022. Munich journalist Daniel Mandelkern (Shooting Star Albrecht Schuch, who just starred in our May 2021 GOETHE FILMS series) hastily leaves his wife Elisabeth Emmerich (Anne Ratte-Polle) and travels to Italy for an interview with the celebrated German writer Mark Svensson (Friedrich Mücke), where he lives in seclusion with photographer Kiki Kaufmann (Ina Geraldine Guy). Mandelkern's stay is supposed to last only a few hours, but Tuuli Kovero (Alina Tomnikov), the heroine of Svensson's novel and eternal love, asks him to stay, and so Mandelkern is fatally drawn into their lives. He becomes entangled in a fascinating story that he thinks he knows from Svensson's novel: a love triangle that began in Colombia, blossomed in Finland, broke up in New York and finally ends with the sudden disappearance of Felix Blaumeiser, portrayed bz rising star Daniel Sträßer.
Daniel Sträßer II: Natja Brunckhorst is (Covid-delayed) in production for melancholic rom-com “Alles in bester Ordnung” (Everything A-Okay). The contrasts between radiant Marlen (Corinna Harfouch), in her 60s, and Fynn (Sträßer), half her age, couldn't be any more extreme: Marlen's apartment is packed with objects from her travels that are too significant to throw away, while Fynn plans to go through life with only 100 things in his possession. The fact that they can't keep their hands off each other and end up falling in love holds true to the old adage that opposites really do attract. (
You heard it here first: The Goethe-Instiitut Toronto will present Corinna Harfouch in her last powerful lead role as Lara in the eponymous award-winning drama by Jan-Ole Gerster (Oh Boy) this August, stay tuned for announcement!). And if the name Natja Brunckhorst rings a bell but you can’t place the writer-director: She was the actress who portrayed 14-year-old titular heroin addict in Uli Edel’s 1981 classic film “Christiane F.”
Nana Neul is in post-production with the dramatic road movie
“Daughters,” starring Birgit Minichmayr (“3 Days in Quiberon” — see Emily Atef above) and Alexandra Maria Lara (“Downfall,” “Rush”). The adaptation of Lucy Fricke’s popular novel is a German-Greek-Italian co-production, one of the first European projects to resume shooting after the lockdown. The film centres on Betty and Martha, two women pushing 40, who set off from Germany to accompany their dying father to Switzerland. There, he is to fulfil his last wish: committing assisted suicide. Their journey leads them through Italy and Greece.
From daughters to sons: “My Son” by Lena Stahl is ready for its audience, a tragicomedy featuring J
onas Dassler (the star of Fatih Akin’s “The Golden Glove”) as the title character opposite Anke Engelke (“Deutschland 86”) as his mother, who decides to take her son’s fate into her own hands after he is seriously injured in a skateboard accident. She brings him to a rehab clinic in Switzerland; however, long-forgotten conflicts and painful memories start surfacing during the journey through Germany as mother and son clash over his desire for a life with more freedom and independence.
Taking us further afield, “Transamazonia” is announced as a contemporary western set in the frontier world of the Amazon rainforest, where a missionary pastor and his young daughter, a miracle healer, are tangled up in a violent conflict between an indigenous tribe and marauding loggers. The French-German-Portuguese co-production will be
Pia Marais’ follow-up to her celebrated 2013 “Layla Fourie,” shooting this fall and to be released in 2022 (Berlinale?). Marais, born in South Africa and living in Berlin, was also the directing mentor for Mbithi Masya’s spectacular Kenyan ghost feature Kati Kati at TIFF 2016.
I am eagerly awaiting to discover “Ivie like Ivie,” Sarah Blaßkiewitz’ debut feature, in our post-Covid cinemas. The film already won the 2019 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Baltic Event Works in Progress Award and is nominated for a First Steps Emerging Talent Award. Ivie is a 30-year-old woman with African roots living in Leipzig, who is looking for a permanent job as a teacher whilst working at her best friend’s tanning salon. One day, her younger half-sister Naomie turns up unexpectedly from Berlin — Ivie didn’t even know of her existence and now learns that their father has died in Africa. Will she travel to Guinea for the funeral with Naomie? Fist, they have to get to know each other, triggering a rollercoaster of feelings and alienating her friends and work colleagues who suddenly see her in a new light. The comedy-drama stars Haley Louise Jones, Lorna Ishema, and Anne Haug.
And, honorary mention if not a German co-production: Christian Petzold muse
Nina Hoss ("Phoenix") stars in Jane Anderson's UK war drama “Women In The Castle” alongside Daisy Ridley ("Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens") and Kristin Scott ("The English Patient"), based on a novel by Jessica Shattuck. Three widows of conspirators involved in the assassination attempt on Hitler struggle with their past and Germany's liberation. This one is still in pre-production, so we will have to wait till 2022.
by
Jutta Brendemühl
image: Vicky Krieps and Albrecht Schuch at the German TV Awards 2019 in Düsseldorf. © Superbass /
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
