German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Recent in-production news out of Germany and Europe has been fantastically heavy on female-led projects: Fingscheidt’s yet untitled Sandra Bullock-starrer; Harfouch’s “The Girl with the Golden Hands”; Stünkel’s “Nahschuss”; Nosbusch’s “Gift”; von Heinz’ new TV series “KaDeWe”; and Finsterwald's "Sisi" reinterpretation.

Here are teasers to whet your appetite for more upcoming female-made films, many sophomore efforts, many beyond arthouse going for blockbuster fame or contemporary romantic comedies promising box office success -- all of them aiming/hoping for a 2021 release date if production picks up in time, post-Corona.

2x news from director Katja von Garnier (of the “Ostwind” youth series). She is working on “Fly,” written by Daphne Ferraro (“Dark”) based on an idea by von Garnier and Paula Riemann, who is mostly known as an actress, e.g. alongside her mother Katja Riemann in Margarethe von Trotta’s “Forget About Nick”. Continue reading "Who's staying with the calves? Female films in..." »

Hello World. Microsoft’s gender-neutral AI “Tay” says they are stoked to meet me. "The more humans share with me the more I learn.” And there’s the rub. Who teaches these new artificial kids? And what do they teach them? Shalini Kantayya's documentary “Coded Bias,” which premiered at Sundance in January and just screened at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival (the largest in North America) is getting a lot of deserved attention as it doesn’t need two minutes to go for the jugular: Shockingly pervasive, all-encompassing image bias built into algorithm-based tech is stealthily governing our day-to-day lives, from Amazon to Alexa. Snapchat filters. Gendered shopping suggestions. Spotify playlists. Credit checks. Resume key wording. AI recruiting. All algorithm-based.

The film, co-produced by Sabine Hoffman, who began her career as an editor in Berlin before moving to the US, is extremely packed and quick on its feet but deftly crafted around a single-minded focus. It successfully walks the fine line between accessibility, digestibility and not losing necessary complexity. “Coded Bias” is a compulsory AI Ethics 101 course by way of a stringently compelling investigation on the road to data authoritarianism and algorithmic oppression (thank you for the helpful little “smart screen“ notes and highlights to keep track of all the hits that keep on coming). Continue reading "#imagesmatter: Coded Bias #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.

Name & role: Dr. Simone Emmelius, Senior Vice President International Fiction - Coproduction & Acquisitions; previously head of ZDFneo, ZDFinfokanal, ZDFdokukanal, and multimedia; board member of the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems

This is my 2nd Berlinale for ZDF as Senior Vice President International Fiction.

ZDF is the Berlinale’s main sponsor. What’s your broadcaster’s interest in the festival, and what opportunities does it give you as head of international fiction?
For the national public broadcaster in Germany, it’s not only a “must”, it’s an affair of the heart to be committed to the Berlinale – and by the way, ZDF is media partner for the 17th time. Continue reading "Berlinale People: Simone Emmelius, ZDF" »

During the TIFF19 world premiere of Ina Weisse’s THE AUDITION, I was sitting next to Canadian playwright-mathematician John Mighton, the author of The Myth of Ability, who argues that we are all born capable of learning anything. Throughout this family drama, I kept thinking about what that looks like here, especially when Nina Hoss in her role as a driven music teacher fights with her student about the relationship between quantity of practice and the intensity of playing.

At the advanced and demanding music school Anna teaches at, most colleagues administer their students and their art form. Anna burns for her work. And her new violin student Alexander. Too much as it turns out. Continue reading "#TIFF19 #review: The Audition" »

Reposting my review of Valeska Grisebach's Cannes & TIFF success WESTERN because it is another algorithm "If you liked this film --and I did--, you will like Grisebach's earlier BE MY STAR," which we are screening 1 night only on May 14 as part of our GOETHE FILMS series "Past Forward: Directors before Cannes."

At last year's Berlinale I was impressed with Aline Fischer, a young French-German filmmaker entering the microcosm of male Arab migrants in Berlin. Perhaps she took classes with Valeska Grisebach, who achieves the same feat with WESTERN, a woman artist uniquely illuminating a hermetic male ecosystem --here German construction workers in Bulgaria.

The women who appear in the film are as diverse as they are backgrounded: the caring elderly matriarch, the storekeeper who initially to refuses to serve the German, the village girl who scoffs at the construction worker's advances, the translator who becomes the object of desire.

"As a woman, I was interested in this closed male cosmos, where women are physically absent but in other ways incredibly present. They are constantly being talked about, being fantasized. On the one hand, there’s the desire for women, on the other a great and different intimacy among the men," Grisebach told Berlin's taz newspaper. Continue reading "#TIFF17 review: WESTERN - The Woman Who Stares..." »

Select media responses to "Ulrike Ottinger in Asia":

“The Goethe-Institut's ULRIKE OTTINGER IN ASIA series is well worth your time” – Norm Wilner (NOW Magazine) 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" »

At 75, and just off the Berlinale Documentary Jury, Ulrike Ottinger is working on her next art doc, PARIS CALLIGRAMMES, which takes her back to her days as an art student in Paris.
Her personal memories of the city during the revolutionary 1960s, the Paris bohème and of her contemporaries are combined with exclusive archival material to create a "calligramme", a typographical poem.

Here is an excerpt from her yet-unpublished director’s statement, courtesy of the filmmaker:
Continue reading "Ulrike Ottinger next: Paris Calligrammes" »

Join the Goethe-Institut Toronto on Oct 12 for a 35mm screening of HANNAH ARENDT and the Thursday prior, Oct 5 for a 16mm screening of ROSA LUXEMBURG:

We asked female film and art critics to look at the Goethe-Institut Toronto's exhibition Early UFA Film Posters: Projecting Women with eight visuals from famous as well as rarely seen or lost Berlin UFA films from the 1920s and 30s that portray women as heroines or seductresses, debutantes or harlots. Toronto film critic Alex Heeney took a closer look at two of them:

I had been staring at the poster for "Die Nibelungen" (Fritz Lang’s 1924 fantasy-adventure film) from across the room at the Goethe-Institut for half an hour before I noticed a woman was on it. She’s leading the cavalry charge on the bridge. But she almost blends in. Of the eight posters in the exhibition “Early UFA Film Posters: Projecting Women”, this was the only poster where I didn’t immediately spot a woman. Since the poster was used, at the time, to advertise the film on pillars, walls, and billboards, most people would have had the same view as I did. So I probably wasn’t alone in missing her presence.

Yet Martin Lehmann-Steglitz’s poster is designed to draw attention to this woman as im-portant and different, the heroine of the piece, Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) — but only subtly so. Continue reading "UFA @ 100: Women at war with men" »

BARBARA SUKOWA will introduce on Oct 3!
NOW Magazine's Susan C. Cole will introduce on Oct 12!

Email me by noon EST on Sept 29 for your chance to win tickets to any of the 3 films!
(Only the winners will be notified.)