4 reasons to catch LARA

Whether on the movie screen, television, or the theatre stage, she has captivated audiences with her versatility, depth, and passion for over 30 years. She has been honoured multiple times for her superlative performances, having won the Adolf Grimme Award, German Film Award, German Actor Award, Bavarian Film Award, and Berlinale Camera.

Harfouch studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin from 1978 to 1981. In the early 1990s she worked on Berlin’s stages and became one of the leading actresses of Volksbühne director Frank Castorf. For her role as General Harras in Carl Zuckmayer's play The Devil's General in 1997, she received the coveted Gertrud Eysoldt Ring theatre award for outstanding acting achievements and was voted Actress of the Year.

Her television and cinema career began in the 1980s. One of her very first movies, Roland Gräf’s Das Haus am Fluss (1996), made her known to a wide audience, and in 1987 she offered a convincing performance as Detective Meffert in Hark Bohm’s Der Kleine Staatsanwalt. The following year in Siegfried Kühn’s literary adaptation Die Schauspielerin, she portrayed a woman who disguises herself as a Jew during the Nazi period in order to not lose her lover. Her performance won several prizes, including the Best Actor Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. And as the wife of the revolutionary Georg Forster in Michael Gwisdek's directorial debut Treffen in Travers, she won the Actress Award in 1990 at the GDR’s last National Festival for Feature Films, as well as a European Film Award nomination.

Harfouch has since appeared in more than 80 film and cinema productions and is considered one of the most versatile actresses in the German film scene. In the 90s her roles included a GDR fugitive in Margarethe von Trotta’s Das Versprechen (1995) and a prison doctor in Matthias Glasner's gangster film Sexy Sadie (1996). Her portrayal of Magda Goebbels in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall (2004) earned her critical praise as well as a German Film Award nomination.

Harfouch has performed frequently at the Deutsches Theater since 2008, including in Die Möwe (Director: Jürgen Gosch) and currently in the classical tragedy Phaedra (Director: Stephan Kimmig) and in the adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (Director: Anna Bergmann).

Tom Schilling as Lara's son Viktor

Schilling was born in Berlin in 1982 and is one of the most sought-after German actors of his generation. He already has an impressive career behind him in theatre, film, and television.

Schilling was seen most recently in Alireza Golafshan’s tragicomedy Die Goldfische (2019) and is about to lead the new Sky TV series Me and the Others alongside Lars Eidinger. He previously starred in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-nominated drama Never Look Away (2018) with Sebastian Koch and Paula Beer. His portrayal of the artist Kurt Barnert, inspired by the life of the painter Gerhard Richter, earned him considerable critical acclaim.

Schilling was already appearing on theatre stages and in films as a boy. At the age of six, he played his first role in Jurij Kramer's short film Stunde der Wahrheit (1988) made for GDR television. He was discovered as a twelve-year-old by famed director Thomas Heise for the play Im Schlagschatten des Mondes (1995) and performed at the renowned Berliner Ensemble.

In Friedemann Fromm's action drama Paradise Mall, Schilling was seen in his first movie role alongside Heiner Lauterbach and Franka Potente. The then-eighteen-year-old became famous overnight starring with Robert Stadlober in Hans-Christian Schmid’s award-winning literary adaptation Crazy (2000). Schilling received the Bavarian Film Award for Best Young Actor for his performance. Among other prizes, Crazy won the German Film Award in Silver for Best Feature Film and was one of the movie hits of the year 2000. The talented young actor later appeared in other successful German feature films before receiving a scholarship in 2006 for the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and spending half a year in New York. He was subsequently seen in 2008 in Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex, and in 2009 offered a convincing performance as the young Hitler in Urs Odermatt’s Mein Kampf (2009).

Schilling celebrated one of his most notable successes playing the leading role, the aimless Berlin college dropout Niko, in the award-winning tragicomedy A Coffee in Berlin (2012). Jan-Ole Gerster’s directorial debut was not only the surprise hit of the year at box offices, but also scored at the 2013 German Film Awards with six Lolas, including for Best Feature Film. Schilling received the coveted trophy for Best Actor, his second Bavarian Film Award, and a nomination for the German Film Critics Award. He was also nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actor in 2014. A Coffee in Berlin won as Best Debut Film.

In 2014 Schilling landed another hit alongside Elyas M'Barek, Wotan Wilke Möhring, and Hannah Herzsprung in Baran bo Odar’s award-winning Who Am I that premiered at TIFF. In addition to his feature film successes, Schilling is also a highly sought-after television actor. In 2013 he was seen as the title character in Nuran Calis’s modern literary adaptation Woyzeck and as one of the leading actors in Philipp Kadelbach’s award-winning TV miniseries Generation War.

Schilling also collaborated with Philipp Kadelbach in the TV thriller Auf kurze Distanz in 2016. The same year he starred in Züli Aladag's Die Opfer – Vergesst mich nicht – one of the episodes of the sensational trilogy Mitten in Deutschland: NSU. In 2017 he played the lead role in Oliver Hirschbiegel's six-part TV series The Same Sky, honored with the German Television Award for Best Miniseries. In Heinrich Breloer’s biopic Brecht, which celebrated its world premiere at the 69th Berlinale in the Berlinale Special section, he offered a convincing performance as the young Bertolt Brecht.

Since 2014 Schilling has also been frequently cast in international films, including Lulu Wang’s Posthumous (2014), Saul Dibb’s Suite Française (2014) with Michelle Williams and Matthias Schoenarts, and Simon Curtis’s The Woman in Gold (2015) with Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Katie Holmes, and Daniel Brühl.

His second passion is music. He toured for the first time with his band Tom Schilling & The Jazz Kids in May 2017.

Frank Griebe, Cinematographer

For more than twenty years, Griebe, born in Hamburg in 1964, has been enriching the television and cinema landscape with his unmistakable images, for which he has won numerous awards, including the Adolf Grimme Award, European Film Award, German Film Award, and German Camera Award. Griebe sets himself apart from his colleagues with his great technical sophistication, passion for the experimental, and exceptional stylistic versatility. After training as a camera assistant, he began his career as a cinematographer in the early 1990s – which also marked the beginning of his long-standing collaboration with director Tom Tykwer.

For his first film project, Tom Tykwer’s Die tödliche Maria (1993), Griebe was awarded the Kodak Prize and the German Camera Award. In 1998 he received the German Film Award for his work on Tom Tykwer's multi- award-winning thriller Winter Sleepers (1997) and Peter Lichtefeld's romance Train Birds (1998). The experimental video clip aesthetic – ultra-modern for the time – of Tom Tykwer's hit movie Run Lola Run (1998) was spectacular and caused an international sensation. The film took eight Lolas at the 1999 German Film Awards, including for Best Feature Film, Best Direction, and Best Cinematography. His comparatively aturalistic camera work for Sebastian Schipper's tragicomedy Gigantic (1999) was also successful. These were followed by such films as Tom Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior (2000) and Leander Haussmann’s cult comedy Berlin Blues (2003).

Because of Griebe’s enormous stylistic range, with which he always succeeds in visually translating the theme of a film, he was awarded the Marburg Camera Award in 2002 for his oeuvre. The same year he received the German Film Critics Award for his cinematography in Tom Tykwer’s internationally successful production Heaven starring Cate Blanchett.

For Franka Potente's directorial debut Digging for Belladonna (2006), Griebe provided the look of an early slapstick silent film, earning him and the director the Adolf Grimme Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in terms of conception, idea, and camera work. Also in 2006, he was responsible for the equally opulent and realistic image composition of Tom Tykwer’s bestseller adaptation Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. For this Griebe received the European Film Award as well as another German Film Award.

In 2012 Griebe created stunning images in the star-studded and award-winning drama Cloud Atlas by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings. The action adventure was nominated for the Golden Globe, among other awards. Together with American star cinematographer John Toll, Griebe received his fourth German Film Award in 2013.

In 2013, the visionary cinematographer received the German Camera Award as a tribute to his life's work. This was followed in 2018 by a German Television Award for his work on the masterpiece series Babylon Berlin.

Most recently, Griebe’s camera work could be admired in Markus Goller’s German comedy 25 km/h (2018). Other films shot by Griebe include Tom Tykwer's political thriller The International (2009), the episode "Feierlich reist" of the film project Germany 09 (2009), and A Hologram for the King (2016). In addition to his cinematography for feature films, he has worked on documentaries such as Annekatrin Hendel’s Anderson – Anatomie des Verrats (2014), Sönke Wortmann’s Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen (2006), and Romuald Karmakar’s If I Think of Germany at Night (2017). And he was involved in the large-scale television project 24 Hours Berlin (2009).

Arash Safaian, Composer

Arash Safaian was born in Tehran and grew up near Bayreuth, Bavaria, where he soon came in contact with the operas of Richard Wagner. In addition to his involvement with music, painting and sculpture were also defining interests of his childhood and adolescence. He initially studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg before switching to composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He has made a name for himself with numerous works for orchestra, ensembles, film, and music theatre, which have been premiered in New York (on the beach) under the direction of Robert Wilson, in Berlin (Der Schuss 2-6-1967) at the Neuköllner Oper, and in Munich (At Stake) at the Opera Biennale.

Safaian has been awarded the Composition Prize of the Reinl Foundation in Vienna, the Gerda and Günter Bialas Prize, and the EON Cultural Award Bavaria. He has been a fellow of the Villa Concordia Bamberg, the City of Munich, and the Cité internationale des arts Paris. His works are performed by renowned orchestras and ensembles and at international classical music festivals. In 2017 he received the ECHO KLASSIK Award for his concert cycle ÜberBach.