German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

Part of 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 visitors.

Name & role: Sven Schwarz, Managing Director of the Hamburg International Short Film Festival and member of the Hamburg-based artist group A Wall is a Screen (which will co-produce an event with the Goethe-Institut Toronto later this year).

This is my 11th Berlinale.

Most important meeting I will have in Berlin: Quite a few meetings to plan new cooperations between the Hamburg International Short Film Festival and other international festivals. And of course the annual German Short Film association reception, which gathers some of the nicest people around in a very laid-back atmosphere.

Most exciting industry buzz at Berlinale 2017: Continue reading "#BerlinalePeople: Sven Schwarz, shorts programmer" »

Continue reading "Short Films for Short Days" »

Last time, I highlighted the doc LEFT BEHIND as part of our special 40-minute program “The Future of Energy”, curated to broaden and widen our current Post-Oil City discussion around our footprint(s) on the planet.

Let me throw a spotlight on two other shorts in this series. The 2011 German short HURDY GURDY lets us into an enclosed cosmos - just like an instrument that starts over to play its song anew. Directors Daniel Seideneder and Daniel Pfeiffer noted that “The film observes people in a larger context. Time lapse and tilt-shift techniques are used to create a fairytale depiction of everyday life. This technique allows us to step back and observe our planet from a distance. ... Continue reading "The Future of Energy: Dangle" »

For our big “Post-Oil City” cluster this season, I have curated a program of shorts called The Future of Energy as part of the exhibition "Post-Oil City – The History of the City’s Future", screening for free at Evergreen Brick Works’ kiln --see last photo of our opening-- every day until July 31.

5 short films, 5 approaches to urban and (post-)industrial spaces in the context of the environmental changes in our world.

Continue reading "The Future of Energy: Left Behind" »

Watching the mesmerizing, stunning, disturbing and touching punk poem A LOST AND FOUND BOX OF HUMAN SENSATION at our GOETHE FILMS series opening last night --and it worked so well before CRAZY--, I realized I was short-changing (pun intended) our two shorts in this 3-night program on the young, the old and intergenerational relations:

Continue reading "GOETHE FILMS: Young & Old Shorts" »

I am sitting in a hotel room in Germany, watching the (very long) German Film Awards gala. Two acceptance speeches stand out, the shortest and the longest: Both Best Supporting Actor and Actress go to 65+ actors. Michael Gwisdek, who you might remember from GOOD BYE, LENIN!, even wins the award against his son. Christine Schorn, also of GOOD BYE, LENIN! fame, here wins for LIFE IS NOT FOR COWARDS and plays out a little stand-up routine: ”(sighs) So my agent calls and says ‘Christine, I have a job for you, but again … it’s a grandma role.’ – ‘Oh, but I can pull it off, don’t worry!’”, the seasoned theatre and film actress jokes.

TIFF's Piers Handling announced last August that one of TIFF 2012's notable themes was aging --”It seems like the baby boom generation has grown up and is dealing with issues of aging, what it means to age.”-- and for me a motif came into focus that I had felt more than scrutinized for a while, in international (from AMOUR to QUARTET) as well as German films (from the feel good movie BIS ZUM HORIZONT DANN LINKS to the Alzheimer documentary FORGET ME NOT). Continue reading "GOETHE FILMS: And if we all lived together?..." »

One of the world's most important children's film festivals, TIFF Kids International Film Festival, will kick off in Toronto on 9 April. FAMOUS FIVE by Mike Marzuk can be seen as the closing film in the Features section of this special children's offshoot of the renowned Toronto International Film Festival. Three more German films are also being shown in Features: IGOR AND THE CRANES' JOURNEY by Evgeny Ruman (IL/PL/DE), VAMPIRE SISTERS by Wolfgang Groos and VICTOR AND THE SECRET OF CROCODILE MANSION by Philipp Stennert, Cyril Bos. And three German shorts are featured in the program. But this is only one stop for German children's films in Canada, other films will be shown at festivals in Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax.
Continue reading "German children's films conquer Canada" »

Laundry. Waiting. Movement. Music. These were some of the themes that came up during our two-night presentation of the best German and international shorts and the Q&A with filmmakers Oliver Husain, Jasmine Ellis, Phillip Barker and Chris Kennedy in our “Oberhausen on Tour” program at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Continue reading "A short film about ..." »

Wonder why the short films we are about to show you in our next GOETHE FILMS program are so fantastic? Read the Oberhausen Film Festival jury statements to find out.

Winner of the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen 2012:
SNOW TAPES by Mich’ael Zupraner
Israel/Palestinian Territories 2011
Jury statement:
In this work, with a strong sense of political urgency and complexity, the artist provided a camera to a Palestinian family in the highly charged city of Hebron. But instead of a one dimensional depiction of a political conflict, he complicates the viewer's life with a bifurcated screen in which we are confronted not only with the violent reality of the occupation, but also with the glee of the victim when he is able to be aggressive, with the ambivalence of throwing snow balls as both playful and violent, and with the Israeli director himself as someone who stand to gain from representing Palestinian suffering. The result, while raw and rough, is both subtle and evocative, and reconfigures cinema as an active agent beyond the subjective-objective division rather than settle for a passive political role.
Mich’ael Zupraner talks about the making-of SNOW TAPES.
Excerpts from SNOW TAPES.

Continue reading "GOETHE FILMS: Oberhausen jury praises winners" »

"I am looking forward to introducing this selection from the German competition of the Oberhausen Festival 2012. Although it is the German competition, the program includes two films by directors from Toronto: “Plan B” by Jasmine Ellis, and my film “Item Number”. And we’ll both be in attendance.

Continue reading "GOETHE FILMS: Oliver Husain on Oberhausen" »