German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

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Toronto's Hot Docs Festival is in full swing, including 19 German documentaries and many visiting directors and producers.

Two months ago, back at the Berlinale, my international "Berlinale Blogger" colleagues and I were asked: Do documentaries become more important in times of crisis, and if so, does it show at the Berlinale? Here are perspectives and answers from Germany, Canada, Brazil, Egypt, Australia, China, Italy, Japan, UK, and Greece.

Hardly any movement, a lot of water, a refugee boat: An interview with the Berlin director Philip Scheffner about his film Havarie, on view at the Goethe-Institut Toronto this spring.

taz: Mr. Scheffner, a tourist is filming a refugee boat from a cruise ship. You lengthen the YouTube video to 90 minutes in Havarie. Why?

Philip Scheffner: First of all, we wanted to find out what we’re actually seeing when we watch this video. And to attempt, for a few moments, to scratch at the very brutal hierarchy of viewing that exists at the image level in the film so that for a brief moment we are seeing things as equals – but without negating that this hierarchical perspective basically exists at the political level.

The YouTube video was the impetus for your investigations.

To start with, we wanted to find out who’s shooting that video? What’s happening here? So we contacted Terry Diamond, the Irishman who filmed the video, and we went to Ireland. We talked about the “baggage” underlying his making the video. He grew up during The Troubles, the Northern Ireland conflict, and witnessed his best friend being shot dead as a 13-year-old. Then we conducted a wide-ranging investigation. Spoke on location with the Spanish maritime rescue service. We also researched who the people on the boat were and learned that after a month in Spain, they were deported back to Algeria.

At this point, we didn’t do any further research about this, because we couldn’t foresee whether our investigation might cause problems for the people there. Then we discovered a protagonist who had made the same journey from Algeria to Spain eight times. Continue reading "Havarie: Who's shooting that video?" »

Orange on blue, a dinghy overcrowded with people, surrounded by nothing but ocean. The image of refugees on the Mediterranean has become familiar over the last years, and has become a symbol of one of today’s most urgent challenges to Europe’s global role. The pictures might have been shocking in the beginning, but the media using the image over and over again soon tended to dull the audience, giving the (wrong) impression that the story is clear and long understood. German filmmaker Philip Scheffner had started working on a documentary about refugees long before the “peak” of thousands arriving in Germany in 2015. While scrolling through YouTube, he found a clip that intrigued him with the bright blue of the ocean. It was a 3-minute video taping an ocean cruiser’s encounter with a refugee boat in September 2012. The “Adventure of the Seas” reported the sighting of a damaged boat, with 13 people on board, to Spanish coastguard, and was requested to stay on-site until the sea rescue arrived. The encounter lasted 90 minutes. Continue reading "HAVARIE: Colliding stories" »

Toronto is home to North America's biggest film festival each autumn, but the city on Lake Ontario is also a major venue for international documentaries. The 25th edition of Hot Docs, one of the world's leading documentary film festivals, will be held there from 26 April to 6 May 2018. And this year will see a large turnout from Germany, with films garnering prominent slots in the Special Presentations and World Showcase sections.

Together. For a lifetime. Who can manage that? And who still wants to do this? What seems to be strange to us nowadays was the norm for our grandparents' generation. Directors Yasemin and Nesrin Şamdereli – who are known for their internationally awarded feature film ALMANYA - Welcome to Germany – portray five couples from Japan, the USA, India and Germany who have all celebrated their 60th anniversary, in their new documentary. THE NIGHT OF ALL NIGHTS will have its international premiere in Special Presentations and is lighthearted and humorous in the way it reveals the secrets of long-standing partnerships and love.

This year will see European Film Promotion (EFP) joining forces with Hot Docs to present the first edition of the new sidebar The Changing Face of Europe. Continue reading "19 German films and co-productions at Hot Docs..." »

Continue reading "Philip Scheffner's Havarie (Berlinale Forum 2016)" »

Select media responses to "Ulrike Ottinger in Asia":

“The Goethe-Institut's ULRIKE OTTINGER IN ASIA series is well worth your time” – Norm Wilner on Twitter

"Ottinger is one of the greatest voices of German and world cinema, as well as one of the most important voices of feminist and queer cinemas." – Shahbaz Khayambashi, Wylie Writes

“To a Canadian viewer, Under Snow may bring to mind the historic dramas of the Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk: There's a story being told but there is also, equally importantly, a quest to record an ancient way of life.” – Kate Taylor, Globe & Mail Continue reading "Ulrike Ottinger in Asia: Culture from a Distance" »

The Toronto International Film Festival just did an audience survey with such crucial but challenging questions as “When did you feel most connected to a film experience?” I immediately thought of something every programmer and presenter --and probably filmmaker-- dreams of that happened during our last GOETHE FILMS: PEAK German Docs series. For days and weeks after our screening of LAND IN SIGHT, which followed three refugees as they were trying to settle in Germany, audience members kept asking “What happened to Brian?” Brian is an incredibly smart and sensitive young Ghanaian whose asylum claim was rejected at the end of the film --meaning a temporary stay in Germany but no work permit and a looming deportation. Viewers were clearly shaken by that non-ending and non-resolution. So I went back to the two directors Judith Keil and Antje Kruska for an update, four years later, this is what they sent:

"As for Brian’s development, we know that he has been in relatively regular, friendly contact with his social worker seen in the film. She has also informed us what has happened in his life approximately one year after the release of the film.
Continue reading "The power of doc: "What happened to..." »

Join us Friday at 6pm for free at the Goethe-Institut Toronto.