German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Continue reading "#Berlinale23: Lonely Oaks #review" »

An ongoing series of mini profiles on the blog German Film @ Canada on the movers and shakers that make the Berlinale one of the most important events in the international film calendar: the filmmakers, actors, programmers, curators, industry promoters and fans, from rookies to veterans.

Name & role: Langston Uibel, actor (Dogs of Berlin; Unorthodox; How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)), lead in Petzold’s Berlinale Competition film Afire. Born in London, lives in Berlin.

This is my 2nd Berlinale.

You are one of the protagonists in Christian Petzold’s new Berlinale Competition film Afire. What’s your character and how did you land the role? Continue reading "#BerlinalePeople: Langston Uibel, actor" »

Back in the real world, for an all-in-person 73rd Berlinale with a record number of top German film premieres, we are getting ready to bring you film news as it happens. Berlinale Bloggers are reporting live from Berlin -- from their perspectives coming out of Canada, Egypt, India, Korea, Russia, Brazil, Italy, and China.

Get ready for our Instagram video reviews @GoetheInstitut and more in-depth ponderings right here, including reviews of new German features across the Berlinale sections and nods to Canada @ Berlinale.

image: c Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut is thrilled to present the art documentary Girls/Museum by Shelly Silver as an in-cinema installation at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Girls/Museum (trailer) takes the viewer through the historical art collection of the Museum of Fine Art Leipzig, guided by a group of girls aged 7 to 19. Art is typically the reserve of anointed experts, and girls rarely take or are given a central and unfettered place to speak from. From imaginative leaps of storytelling to curt pronouncements, from gender fluidity to power, inequality, precarity and war, Girls/Museum, in its quiet way, calls for questioning basic assumptions of what and who we value. Continue reading "Girls/Museum - next gen artists & audiences" »

Happy to report that the Goethe-Institut gets to present my favourite documentary of the past few years at the Art Gallery of Ontario. I saw Girls/Museum by New York filmmaker Shelly Silver at DOK Leipzig in 2020 and have been singing its praises since. The film is a voyage through the historical art collection of the Museum of Fine Art Leipzig, guided by the expertise and insights of a group of girls aged 7 to 19. Moving from artwork to artwork, century to century, they tell us what they see. More background and filmmaker commentary to follow, I'll leave you with girls looking at art. Continue reading "Girls/Musem @ Art Gallery of Ontario" »

If, like me, you're already suffering from severe FOMO just by glancing at the hundreds of promising films in the 73rd Berlinale line-up or are wondering what to watch out for in international cinemas for the rest of 2023, you might profit from some bespoke pointers... et voilà:

If you like your arthouse with a good dose of crime & want to see how the Cannes director approaches a trans story:
Till the End of the Night by Christoph Hochhäusler
with Timocin Ziegler, Thea Ehre, Michael Sideris
An undercover investigator is supposed to gain the trust of a criminal through a fictitious relationship with a contact person.
World premiere, Competition

If you like Petzold + actors Beer & Brandt (both in Transit) & the next superstar Langston Uibel (my prediction) & want to see the second film in Petzold’s latest trilogy after Undine & how the director tells a queer story: Continue reading "The ultimate what-to-watch at Berlinale list" »

Dusseldorf composer Volker Bertelmann (aka the musician Hauschka) has long been a friend of the Goethe-Institut Toronto (here and here and here). Last fall he was at his TIFF world premiere to let audiences in on the breathtaking soundtrack --up for 2 Academy Awards-- for multi-Oscar nominated war drama All Quiet on the Western Front:

Making history: The German entry ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Edward Berger (DE/US, Amusement Park Film) has been nominated for the 95th Oscar® in the International Feature Film category as well as the categories for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Music (Original Score), Production Design, Cinematography, Makeup & Hairstyling, Sound and Visual Effects.

"ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the third nomination for Germany in the International Feature Film category within the last ten years. The impressive number of nine Oscar® nominations is an excellent sign of the outstanding quality of German filmmaking in the global arena. And for the first time, a German film enters the race in the Oscar® category BEST FILM,” German Films Managing Director Simone Baumann explains. Continue reading "Making history: 9 Oscar noms for All Quiet on..." »

Happy birthday, AG Kurzfilm! The German Short Film Association, who are turning 20, have been an important partner of the Goethe-Institut, especially through their Emerging Artists and Short Exports programs, which we have shown online and exhibited in Toronto over the years. German Short Film Association AG Kurzfilm asked to send a greeting on their 20th anniversary. So looking back at past collaborations and remembering shorts we have presented, I montaged the film titles into a "birthday poem," pondering the art form.

I have a CONFESSION: Continue reading "Hommage à AG Short Film @ 20" »

The Goethe-Institut Toronto is launching it's programming year with a collaboration with the DesignTO Festival, presenting the award-winning documentary Taste the Waste in a free one-night-only community screening and launching the timely conversation of DesignTO's online symposium on "Trash Talk". Read director Valentin Thurn's take on consumption and food security:

How come you chose the topic of food waste?
In 2007, I made a documentary about dumpster divers, people living off food waste. At first it seemed to be an interesting but rather exotic topic. However, researching it I was stunned to realise the gigantic dimension of the amount of waste and its implications for our climate and global food security. I already came into contact with this throw-away madness 30 years ago: On a cycling tour through England with a friend we ran out of money at some stage. I was 18 at the time. We had a return ticket but didn’t want to go back home to Germany earlier than planned. So we decided to manage the remaining nine days without any money. This is how I came to live off fruits and vegetables sorted out by a hypermarket in London – we had been given this tip by a homeless person living in the Docks, where we had set up our tent. Continue reading "Taste the Waste" »