German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

by @JuttaBrendemuhl

The European Union Film Festival Toronto, founded at the Goethe-Institut 12 years ago, is now presenting the best of European cinema year round at the Royal Theatre. In our inaugural year, we're taking you back to 1989 with Wolfgang Becker's Oscar-nominated comedy-drama GOOD BYE, LENIN!, which catapulted a young Daniel Brühl to instant fame. Just recently, the story of a throw-back to communist-era East Germany has been repeating itself in real life:


A retirement home in Dresden has recreated a corner of the former communist East Germany in a bid to help residents with Alzheimer’s. Several rooms at the Alexa Seniors’ Residence have been redecorated with garish 70s wallpaper and clunky furniture from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The home’s management have scoured flea markets and eBay for communist-era bric-a-brac, including unwieldy portable cassette players, outdated cookers and a giant bread-slicer. The home even runs its own small shop, selling residents everyday products from the era, while a photograph of Erich Honecker, the general secretary of the East German communist party looks on. Continue reading "GOOD BYE, LENIN! live: Dresden retirement home..." »

After mixed reviews for his Armenian drama “The Cut” this summer, Hamburg’s Fatih Akin is busy working on his next film, “Aus dem Nichts” (roughly “From Nothing”), a film which targets social exclusion and radicalization. This will likely land him in no less trouble than a contentious genocide film: his new protagonist is heavily overweight Ilias, an outsider who falls in with left-wing radicals and begins to plan a bloody attack.

Christoph Hochhäusler‘s new German-French thriller “Die Lügen des Siegers“ (“The Winner’s Lies”), featuring an ambitious investigative journalist who gets tangled up in a web of lies and deceit, should be out before the Berlinale. The Berlinale, coming up in February, could be a big one for German film if both Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog finish their films -- “Everything Will Be Fine” and “Queen of the Desert“ respectively—which weren’t ready in time for the fall festival circuit.

Austrian master Michael Haneke also tackles a media-critical topic that couldn’t be farther from his usual fare. In “Flashmob”, a French production, he “explores the fragile relationship between media and reality”, following a handful of people who connect via the Internet, then unite in a flash mob. The project is being held up though because Haneke’s unnamed number 1 choice for lead actress isn’t available at the moment - and because he hasn’t decided on his aesthetic approach, Sight & Sound reported.

Director Uli Edel of “The Baader Meinhof Complex“ fame will be back in 2015, Continue reading "Waltz & Brühl go bad, Ganz does good: New..." »

The theme for this year’s array of #German films at #TIFF14 could have been Hot Young Actors, and they all came, to the delight of fans: Tom Schilling, Elyas M'Barek, Hannah Herzsprung, Alexander Fehling, Florian David Fitz. The mainstream selection of German features definitely had a definite TV movie feel to it, but that is not necessarily a swear word these days. The shining directorial star was without doubt Berlin's Christian Petzold, who delivered with "Phoenix" and stands --together with his "muse", actor Nina Hoss-- heads above most other films I saw (and was very well-received and well-reviewedand sold to the North American market within days, so you will get to see it in theatres soon). You heard it here first: The next (2016) #Petzold film will be treatment of Anna Seghers' book "Transit".

Here's my #TIFF14 flashback in tweets:

German themes 2014:
+++ Watch & compare @tiff.net: PHOENIX + LABYRINTH OF LIES: echoes of Holocaust in post-war #Germany.

+++ Euthanasia featured prominently -and delicately- (after last year's "Amour") with "Tour de Force" & "The Farewell Party".

+++ New German Wave: the well-made #thriller: #WhoAmI @BaranboOdar

Winners & Losers: Continue reading "#TIFF14 Flashback in Tweets" »

The most exciting German film news (again) comes out of Canada. Legendary German actors Bruno Ganz (“Wings of Desire”, Hitler in “Downfall”), Gunter Lamprecht (“Berlin Alexanderplatz”) and Heinz Lieven (most recently in Sorrentino’s Cannes entry “Cheyenne”) will all star in Atom Egoyan’s new thriller “Remember”, alongside the film’s lead, no less legendary hometown boy Christopher Plummer, fresh from his 2012 Oscar for “Beginners”.

The film, about to start shooting in Toronto, follows a man’s hunt for a Nazi war criminal who killed his family.

Staying on subject with German 20th century history --ample fodder for German and international films--, Berlin auteur Christian Petzold is working on “Phoenix” for a potential fall release as writer-director with his outstanding "Barbara" cast Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld, plus one of my new favourite actors, Nina Kunzendorf. (If you want to revisit “Barbara”, we’ll show it again this fall). Here Hoss is a Holocaust survivor who returns home to find her husband with another woman.
Continue reading "New German Films: Akin, Petzold, Herzog, more" »

Let's talk about literature for a moment. "Lila, Lila" with Daniel Brühl before he became an international star, and the always impressive Hannah Herzsprung --both young actors have rightly been honoured with the "Shooting Star Award", which we featured in our GOETHE FILMS series two years ago-- is based on a popular novel by Swiss writer Martin Suter.

A novel of course never goes on screen untouched. “One cannot convert a book into a film one-to-one, you have to reduce the material,” says Alain Gsponer, the Swiss director of "Lila, Lila". Especially the endings of the book and the film differ from each other. Changes also affected the satire that comes out in the book about the book market. “We cut this aspect back and focused more on the media hysteria, how everything is blown out of proportion by the media,” says the director. David (Brühl), the protagonist, lies about being the author of the tragic love story, and suddenly becomes a media darling.
Continue reading "GOETHE FILMS REVIEW: "Lila, Lila"..." »

Mark your calendars for our next series of GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Bell Lightbox, which will have you laugh right to the box office.

What is your favourite classy comedy? Email us your answer until 1 May for your chance to win a DVD of another successful German comedy, Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mostly Martha", or as Rolling Stone called it, "the tastiest film about food and sex since Big Night!"

by Jutta Brendemuehl, Toronto

Leaving 2013 on a light note, here are a few Youtube snippets to enjoy with a glass of hot Glühwein.

Daniel Brühl was one of the German stars who broke all records this year. We will bring him back to Toronto screens in our upcoming GOETHE FILMS comedy series in May. To get you in the mood (if the priceless "Rush" poster image doesn't do the job) ...

1. Most recently in “Rush”, for which he is Golden Globe-nominated, soon-to-be wife Marlene asks Nikki Lauda to drive fast.

2. Brühl is Adam Goldberg‘s fairy in the really funny 2007 Julie Delpy comedy “2 Days in Paris“.

3. And Daniel Brühl can even peel your potatoes in Polish, here in “Ladies in Lavender”. Continue reading "3x proof Daniel Brühl is funny" »

Germany is opening TIFF 2013! Well, sort of. Bill Condon's (US) Wikileaks thriller "The Fifth Estate" (which I pray is as good and relevant it has the potential to be) stars Britain's Benedict Cumberbatch and Germany's Daniel Brühl as the two leading men, infamous Julian Assange and his friend and WikiLeaks' spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg, on whose book the film is largely based (see previous blog entry on 6 upcoming Brühl films). German IT specialist and transparency advocate Domscheit-Berg is an interesting character: married to Microsoft Germany's Government Relations officer, both prominent members of Germany's renegade "Pirate Party", and known mainly for his falling out with Assange over the leak guru's alleged authoritarian management style. Needless to say WikiLeaks and Assange are not amused, as the Hollywood Reporter announced that producers DreamWorks and Disney are gearing up for a fight. THR quotes Assange as saying that "The movie is a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff" and presenting "lie upon lie". Seems like an apropos message control battle in the NSA World we now live in.
Watch the trailer here, including a glimpse of Berlin's TV tower - the production shot a week in Berlin in January.

Brühl filled in after both Joel Kinnaman and James McAvoy dropped out due to other demands. Good for us, as we will see two well-known German actors --Moritz Bleibtreu (World War Z; Goethe!) is also on the cast-- in a major international production. And that will be my main meme and theme this year, even more so than last year: The cultural and linguistic melange (or standardization?) international film has become with its cross-casting of actors from all corners of the globe. Continue reading "German films @ TIFF 2013 (& first Goethe..." »