German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Scouted to play the girl Oda in THE POLL DIARIES (at TIFF 2010) while walking down the corridor of her high school at age 14, Paula Beer's only performance experience at that point had been dancing in the youth ensemble of Berlin’s famous Friedrichstadtpalast. By 2017, the 21-year-old Berliner was looking back on a seven-year career spanning eight lauded films, two TV movies and two upcoming arthouse films in production, directed by Christian Petzold and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck no less.

The daughter of artist-parents never went to acting school, other than a short stint in London, but was trained on the job by POLL director Chris Kraus and an acting coach in that first influential lead role of a girl trying to keep control as the world around her crumbles in World War I. Her last director, François Ozon, again casting her in a WWI film, likened her to Romy Schneider. Theresa von Eltz wrote the part of Alex in FOUR KINGS especially for Paula Beer, before being sure she would be able to cast her. Continue reading "Interview: The emotional truth of Paula Beer" »

After announcing new Akin and Wenders and Schloendorff and Graf here before, there are a handful of projects still to add to the “highly anticipated in 2017” section: WORK WITHOUT AN AUTHOR (German trailer) comes out this fall by THE LIVES OF OTHER director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who has to redeem himself for the fall he took with THE TOURIST. In the drama starring Tom Schilling (OH BOY) and newcomer talent Paula Beer (interview), a young artist has escaped from East Germany but is tormented by his upbringing under the Nazi and GDR regimes. Then he meets Ellie, the love of his life, and begins to process the traumatic past in his paintings. Continue reading "Most anticipated German films of 2017 (part 2)" »