German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Biggest winner:
(noticeably increased number of) documentaries.

Biggest laughs:
Udo Kier’s look (you’ll know which one when you see it) in Gus van Sant’s Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot.

Best #TimesUp moment (tie):
Continue reading "#Berlinale2018: Top Take-aways" »

It’s the story of two worlds. The first is called cinema, where we find older people in matinee showings or kids in multiplexes. The second world is people in their living rooms with their 4K televisions, watching Netflix or streaming Game of Thrones from dubious web origins. In between these two worlds there is movement, for example when a new James Bond film is released.

But that’s about all the exchange there is between the two. The two worlds only come closer together again at festivals. It’s not just a perceived reality that there are more and more festivals, but it’s unknown how many film festivals take place around the world every year. In 2013, one journalist counted 2,954. Three-quarters of the festivals he counted at that time were launched between 2003 and 2013. Why is it that today every arty hipster seems to be curating their own film festival in their free time? And why is it that the number of festivals is increasing simultaneously with the great migratory wave of films from the cinema to small screens and smartphones – from the first to the second world?

I reach out to Lars Henrik Gass on Skype. He must know the answers to these questions: he just wrote the book on the subject. Continue reading "The Peculiar Boom in Film Festivals" »

Berlinale, Oberhausen, Oldenburg, DOK Leipzig, goEast Wiesbaden, Genrenale ... Germany flows over with film festivals big and small, some over 60 years old, some founded last year. Many attract international audiences, A-list juries, or niche fans. Here are 5 you might have never heard of until now:

Festival des gescheiterten Films -- Festival of Failed Films
The (proudly unsponsored) Salon des Refusés of films, screening across Germany. Their slogan: We don't show what's worse. We don't show what's better. We show what's different. “Failure as chance: This creative festival gives attention to films that would go under due to their unconventional style. The interested viewer can expect rarely seen ...gems“ by the likes of Film Group Chaos or Wilda WahnWitz, commented Berliner Zeitung in 2016.

Phantastisches Trash Film Festival (TFF)
“Crazy, loud, cool. Small budget meets huge passion.” Define what trash means to you in Kassel, otherwise only known as home of the quinquennial Documenta art extravaganza (which some might argue also offers trash). Continue reading "5 film festivals you never knew existed" »

German cinema has a strong presence at the 17th edition of Toronto's Diaspora Film Festival DFF, running 2-5 November 2017 at the Carlton Cinema and Innis Town Hall. Germany has a long history of hosting diverse cultures and ethnicities, which is reflected in a large number of cinematic (co-)productions
every year. Thus Germany has become one of the top contributors to diaspora cinema. This year, an excellent and wide selection of award-winning German productions has been programmed at the DFF17, co-presented by the Goethe-Institut.

The Festival opens with the provocative and surprising TEHRAN TABOO, nominated for Camera d’Or and Critics’ Week Grant Prize at Cannes FF and for Best Feature at Hamburg FF this year. The closing film is the comedy THE 90 MINUTES WAR, an Israeli/German co-production that offers a new approach to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. MORRIS FROM AMERICA is a comedy about a teenage African-American boy trying to fit in with the kids in Germany. HALAL FOR BEGINNERS is another comedy, an Irish-German co-production about the first halal meat factory in Ireland. Finally, BABAI tells the story of a Kosovo boy who goes through the hardship of a lone voyage to Germany in search of his father.

The Diaspora Film Festival showcases films that explore themes of migration, identity, and inter-cultural exchange – themes acutely relevant to the 21st century. The DFF provides Toronto audiences with a unique opportunity to experience the cultural mosaic of our world through film and promote tolerance and understanding through visual storytelling.

Opening film, Thursday, 2 November 2017, 7:30 PM, Toronto Premiere
Tehran Taboo, by Ali Soozandeh, Germany/Austria, 2017, 96 min, in Farsi with English subtitles
Continue reading "German films @ Diaspora Film Festival 17" »

Schwentke, Wenders, Akin, Zabeil, Grisebach, Odar, Tabak - the Toronto International Film Festival (7 - 17 September 2017) includes a number of world and North American premieres for German filmmakers and an astounding four titles in the prestigious Special Presentations. (Here's the full German Films brochure.)

55 STEPS by Bille August (DE/BE), with Germany's Elsani Film as delegate producer, will be screened as a world premiere in the exclusive red carpet Gala Presentations.

The Special Presentations section is reserved for outstanding films by prominent directors. THE CAPTAIN by Robert Schwentke (D/FR/PL) was invited from Germany and will have its world premiere in Toronto. The filmmaker has already enjoyed blockbuster status in the USA with such films as R.E.D. with Bruce Willis. Another world premiere -as previously announced- will be Wim Wenders' latest feature film SUBMERGENCE (DE/FR/ES) headlined by international stars Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy. Wenders has been invited to the Masters section at TIFF for the third year in a row following EVERY THING WILL BE FINE in 2015 and THE BEAUTIFUL DAYS OF ARANJUEZ in 2016. This year will also see him serving as a jury member for the Platform competitive section.


IN THE FADE by Fatih Akin (DE/FR) and THREE PEAKS by Jan Zabeil (DE/IT) will be continuing their respective successful festival careers after the launch in the Cannes competition and on Locarno's Piazza Grande.
Continue reading "Big German #TIFF17 ahead (& win tix)" »

I hate French films. I love Italian cinema. If someone said that to you, you'd have a pretty good idea of what they mean in terms of aesthetics, style, mood. German film? Not so much, at least post-New German Cinema with its heroes Fassbinder, Kluge, von Trotta et al. Of course there is the contemporary (and equally auteur-focused) Berlin School with its Petzolds and Hochhäuslers (which German director Oskar Roehler defined as "slow and depressing"). And recently, Germany has been very strong and internationally successful in children’s films and high-quality animation. But these are vogues or sub-industries rather than a big picture, a brand, a distinct and distinctive brand. Continue reading "What is a German/European Film?" »

As always, the Venice and Toronto fall film festivals coincide with the first Oscar buzz:Dominik Graf’s feature film BELOVED SISTERS will represent Germany as the official submission for the 87th Academy Awards® for Best Foreign Language Film. This was decided today by an independent jury in Munich, which was appointed by German Films to preside over the selection process.

The nine-person jury, under the chairmanship of Peter Herrmann, based its decision as follows: “BELOVED SISTERS is a modernly told ménage-à-trois that takes us back to the 18th century with a certain lightness. Dominik Graf directed, with his own personal signature and great sensitivity, the story of a moving love affair. The film convinces with the direction of the actors, the images suffused with light, and its very clever and unconventional composition.”

BELOVED SISTERS tells the true but little known story of a ménage-à-trois between Friedrich Schiller and the von Lengefeld sisters, a utopia on the eve of the French Revolution. German actors Florian Stetter, Hannah Herzsprung (about to arrive in Toronto for TIFF14) and Henriette Confurius shine in the leading roles.
Continue reading "BELOVED SISTERS to represent Germany in the..." »

To mark the biggest event of the year --no, not Cannes--, let's look at the other big F. Football fan Wim Wenders recently gave his analysis and prediction: He'd be happy to see Brazil win, believes in the power of the young German team, and even thinks Belgium has a chance. Asked which players he'll be keeping an eye on (from the roof-top big screen of his Berlin apartment), he noted Messi, Götze, and Özil.

Count on Berlin, site of the historic 2006 World Cup, to bring culture into play in the International Soccer Film Festival: "Football and film have discovered that they have a lot in common. Football films depict the social and cultural background of the sport all over the world, its unique ability to simultaneously signify norms and rebellion, riches and poverty, solidarity and fanaticism. It's an ideal métier for storytelling. The sport is full of wonderful images, sympathy and antipathy with protagonists, bitter defeats, tragic heroes. Football contains the sort of archetypes and figures of identification needed to tell cinematic stories."
Let's travel back in cinematic and athletic time & space for a moment...

Continue reading "Football & Film, Wenders & Wortmann" »

The documentary “Anderson” with its Berlinale 2014 premiere has only one protagonist, and Berlin director Annekatrin Hendel gives him room and a rope to hang himself. Sascha Anderson, born 1953, was the charismatic pop star of East Berlin’s oppositional literary scene in Prenzlauer Berg in the 1980s, a close acquaintance of famous GDR intellectuals such as Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller. And he was a zealous informer working for the Stasi, snitching on friends and colleagues.

Hendel sat Sascha Anderson down before a camera 25 years later --in the original, temporarily relocated GDR kitchen that hosted many of the artist salons in the 1980s-- to ask him what prompted him to act as he did. The finely woven web of lies, half-truths and legends he unfurled around him still raises tempers (certainly with the audience in Berlin, who nearly started a riot in the post-screening Q&A). The music of celebrated Berlin electronica band To Rococo Rot happened to be playing at poet Bert Papenfuss’ bar "Rumbalotte” while Hendel was shooting there. When Hendel approached To Rococo Rot's Ronald and Robert Lippok to ask for their moral as much as legal permission to have their music score the film, the brothers were torn. As part of East Berlin's alternative music scene in the 80s, they themselves had been under Stasi scrutiny (Robert left the GDR for West Berlin in 1988). They agreed to leave their music in the film. I attended the premiere with Robert Lippok:

Robert, we just walked out of the old GDR cinema International after the “Anderson” premiere, the protagonist is in the audience, as are many of his former friends and victims. Was the film what you expected?
It was very interesting to see Sascha Anderson so close-up again. In the 80s, he was this "guru" who organized several events I was involved in in the East Berlin arts scene. I was a bit too young then to be treated as an equal by the group around Sascha though. Continue reading "#Berlinale '14 REVIEW: Watching..." »

Part of a series of mini profiles 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 visitors.

Name & role: Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival.

This is my 21st Berlinale.

What’s your focus going into Berlinale 2014? Meetings, meetings, meetings. We're reconnecting with our colleagues from around the world who will bring us films for TIFF for September. We also gather with our international programmers in Berlin; it's a perfect opportunity to catch up, trade new ideas and the all-important industry gossip.

Most interesting film you or your programmers ever “found” at the Berlinale:
So many. Most recently, Wim Wenders's PINA and Asghar Farhadi's A SEPARATION went from Berlinale premieres to North American premieres at our festival, to remarkable success. PINA played theatrically in TIFF Bell Lightbox for months!

TIFF premiere you were most happy to see again at the Berlinale:
It's always a thrill to see a strong drama like Greece's STANDING ASIDE WATCHING or a documentary like FINDING VIVIAN MAIER go from a Toronto premiere to a prestigious invitation to the Berlinale.

Must-do/-see while you are in Berlin:
Currywurst, of course. A candle-lit restaurant in an out-of-the-way neighborhood. A throbbing dance club. Bier.

(German) Film you are most curious about at this Berlinale:
Heinz Emigholz is a major artist. I'm curious about his new film, THE AIRSTRIP.

by Jutta Brendemühl, Toronto

image: Cameron Bailey and TIFF programmer Magali Simard at the Goethe-Institut Toronto 2013, photo Jutta Brendemuehl