German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

The plot is racy: A terrorist attack at the beginning of the film rocks a family to the core. Teenage Maxi – who loses her mother, her brothers and her home – tries to look ahead, but is deeply disoriented and angry. Her father Alex is shell-shocked and fragile. Former certainties and beliefs have been wiped out and the grief that comes with their loss obscures everything. Seeming sidewalk acquaintance Karl gets her out of her paralysis, urges her to conquer her fears, promises solutions. He has organised a meeting of educated, multilingual, and dissatisfied European students called Re/Generation. The task he assigns Maxi could be the deciding factor in the success of a grand plan. Je suis Karl --the pre-manufactured faux grievance call and hashtag battle cry of the film's final scenes-- traces an insidious and seductive political takeover, picking up where the theoretical mind games of The Wave and In the Fade’s legal revenge drama left off.

Factual analysis is not at the heart of this reality -- rage, hubris, and narcissism are. Who is the bomber who kills the progressive German family who recently smuggled in a Libyan refugee? Who cares, the public assumes it was an Islamist. Continue reading "Berlinale 2021: Je Suis Karl #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, programmers, curators, industry promoters and fans, from rookies to veterans. This year, two female Toronto filmmakers-programmers are attending the Berlinale with a European Film Market badge as guests of the Goethe-Institut and a joint Berlinale-Goethe initiative to strengthen festival and industry access for BIPOC/LGBTQIA+/women-led organizations, organizations working towards the empowerment, advancement and growth for marginalized film and media sectors, and towards the greater inclusion, empowerment and advancement of marginalized film professionals in the mainstream industry.

Name & role: Mariam Zaidi, ED Breakthroughs Film Festival, a not for profit organization established in 2011 in Toronto, dedicated to supporting emerging filmmakers who identify as women or non-binary. She is also Associate Programmer for Canadian films at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

This is my 1st Berlinale. Continue reading "#BerlinalePeople: Mariam Zaidi, Breakthroughs..." »

SPOILER ALERT!

In 2013, German(-Algerian) filmmaker Anne Zohra Berrached made her debut in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino with Two Mothers. In 2016, she was invited into the Berlinale Competition with her second female-centric feature, the lauded late-term abortion drama 24 Weeks. Five years later, Berrached is celebrating the world premiere of Copilot in the Berlinale Panorama section.

The film tells the love story of Asli and Saeed, a young Turkish-Arab couple studying in East Germany, before "the world becomes a different place” (as the film’s original title literally translates) because of Saeed's actions on September 11, 2001. Continue reading "Berlinale 2021: Copilot #review (Panorama)" »

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, programmers, curators, industry promoters and fans, from rookies to veterans. This year, two female Toronto filmmakers-programmers are attending the Berlinale with a European Film Market badge as guests of the Goethe-Institut and a joint Berlinale-Goethe initiative to strengthen festival and industry access for BIPOC/LGBTQIA+/women-led organizations, organizations working towards the empowerment, advancement and growth for marginalized film and media sectors, and towards the greater inclusion, empowerment and advancement of marginalized film professionals in the mainstream industry.

Name & role: Rolla Tahir, Artistic Director Toronto Arab Film & Toronto Arab Film Festival; filmmaker

This is my 1st Berlinale.

Why is Berlinale (market) access important for your work?
You'd be hard pressed to find an emerging filmmaker that has no ties to Berlinale. I've been in and around the film festival circuit for over a decade now, in various capacities, but I've been confined to the local circuit for the most part. Canada, no doubt, has a robust and thriving film festival scene, however, when it comes to Arab cinema, Berlinale, is unmatched in programming and opportunities available through its market. As the artistic director and co-founder of the Toronto Arab Film Festival, I speak to many filmmakers, emerging and established, and I'm always intrigued as to which opportunities they had access to, and the majority of them have participated either in Talents, the Market or simply had their films screened in Berlin, which then propels their careers forward. When programming for the festival, my first research stop is the Berlinale programme. Continue reading "#BerlinalePeople: Rolla Tahir, Toronto Arab Film" »

Ain't no stopping us ... 12 Berlinale Bloggers from 9 countries are back for the 71st Berlinale, reporting from wherever we are. Will miss chatting with my colleagues Philipp, Yun-Hua, Lucia, Elena, Camila, Hyejin, Igor, Hyunjin, Ieva and Sarah, but looking forward to their takes from Berlin, Australia, Lithuania, Korea, Russia, Brazil, Italy, and China.

Get ready for our Instagram video reviews @GoetheInstitut and more in-depth ponderings right here, including two interviews with female Canadian arts leaders who will be attending the Berlinale with a courtesy badge by Goethe & the Berlinale, fostering diversity, inclusion, and different perspectives. Continue reading "Berlinale Blogger 2021" »

The future is bright, but some of the most anticipated German arthouse films are still far out. Julia von Heinz of German Oscar submission And Tomorrow The Entire World has just secured Mandy Patinkin and Lena Dunham to star in her planned Holocaust drama Iron Box, while we’re excitedly waiting for Nora Fingscheidt to follow up on her Oscar submission System Crasher (now on Netflix) with her still untitled Sandra Bullock drama (2021?). Count on Christian Schwochow to tie us over on Netflix soon with his UK-made adaptation of Robert Harris' history drama Munich, starring Jeremy Irons, Jannis Niewöhner, Sandra Hüller, Liv Lisa Fries, August Diehl, and Martin Wuttke.

Closer at hand I hope at Berlinale 2021: Dominik Graf’s star-studded Erich Kästner adaptation Fabian —with Tom Schilling, Saskia Rosendahl, Dominik Graf, Meret Becker, and Berlinale Shooting Star Albrecht Schuch— and Anne Zohra Berrached's Copilot, shot by Christopher Aoun. Berrached is already scripting her next project, a fantastical internet love story with the working title Kuschel Cat. Continue reading "Next German films & Berlinale guesses" »

Join the International Literary Festival Berlin & @GoetheToronto free
worldwide screening day of Oscar-nominated documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” on December 10, 6pm EST with a Twitter contextualisation by Dr. Vershawn Young.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends—Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of his death in 1987, Baldwin left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript. "I started to read James Baldwin very early on in my life. At a time, as a young adult in the Sixties, when there were not that many authors in whom I could recognize myself, he was an important guide and mentor to me, as he was to many others. He helped me understand who I was and decipher the world around me," says filmmaker Raoul Peck.

Baldwin's discontinued project became the springboard for Peck's film "I Am Not Your Negro," (trailer) discussing Baldwin’s lived experiences in his own words as read by Samuel L. Jackson. On 10 December 2020, Human Rights Day, the Goethe-Institut Toronto is joining the international literary festival Berlin ilb and many other global organisations in a worldwide viewing day. Meet us on Twitter @GoetheToronto at 6pm EST alongside Baldwin expert and professor of African American Studies, Vershawn Young, who will contextualise the film and Baldwin's work and legacy and take your questions. Continue reading "Worldwide screening day: Raoul Peck's "I..." »

Just before Covid stopped the world and the film industry in its tracks, a slew of new screen projects based in Germany's capital had been announced or just started shooting. With most of them getting back to business now, we can look forward to more Berlin on screen over the next seasons. Regional film funding body Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg said that there were an estimated 5,700 days of shooting in the region last year.

My most anticipated Berlin-shot project is Philipp Stölzl's adaptation of Stefan Zweig's famous chess story “The Royal Game” with Oliver Masucci in the lead, who we are all waiting to see as Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Oskar Roehler's Cannes 2020 film "Enfant Terrible" (which somehow didn't make #TIFF20). Continue reading "Berlin on Screen: Upcoming films & series" »

Cologne director Burhan Qurbani, while not winning a bear, was the Berlinale’s big winner in that his Competition presentation "Berlin Alexanderplatz" led to 11 German Film Award nominations. At the 70th awards show in Berlin on 24 April, we will find out how many Lola trophies Qurbani will take home.

Not resting on his laurels, he told Screendaily already in February that “I want to make three films about the political situation, the change, the gaps in our society, with each of these films have these three words, unity, justice or freedom as a topic”. His new trilogy, inspired by Krzysztof Kieślowski’s famous "Blue" (1993), "White" (1994), and "Red" (1994), will be named after the German national colours black, red and gold, representing unity, rule of law, and freedom.

Christian Petzold, in the Berlinale Competition with "Undine", which won lead Paula Beer a Silver Bear as Best Actress, also announced Continue reading "What's next for Berlinale 2020 stars" »

@GoetheInstitut asked my international #BerlinaleBlogger colleagues & me three post-Berlinale questions, and here are our answers.

Where to, Berlinale?
No more Dieter Kosslick, but Mariette Rissenbeek & Carlo Chatrian: Can you feel the “winds of change” through the change at the top and if so, how does it manifest itself?

Full article here.
Continue reading "Berlinale Blogger: Quo vadis, Berlinale?" »