German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

What do "Metropolis", "The Blue Angel", "Jakob the Liar" --the only GDR production ever nominated for an Oscar--, "Inglourious Basterds", and "Monuments Men" have in common? All have been shot, since its doors opened in 1912, at the Babelsberg Studios just outside Berlin. Tom Hanks and Tom Tykwer just went back there to shoot their latest mega project "Hologram for a King", further putting the location on the map as Europe's Hollywood.

One of Germany's most celebrated auteurs, Oscar winner Volker Schlöndorff, was recently honoured for transitioning Babelsberg from centralized communist film production to Western market economy as its director from 1992 to1997. 100+ years of (nearly) uninterrupted film production from Weimar to Nazi Gemany to the East German DEFA to a unified Germany have included many economic and artistic ups-and-downs. At the Berlinale 2014, the "Filmstudios Babelsberg" were more present than ever with three major films. Europe's larget film factory has become an international brand with big plans for the future, as Berlin's Tagesspiegel reports:

Continue reading "Europe's Hollywood: Studio Babelsberg" »

Summer is upon us, and as much as I love it, it sure ain’t the best of times for new arthouse films. So, fast forward with a look at noteworthy German films in production/coming soon that we will get to see over the next months and 2014. As I was writing this, the list got so long that I will have to split it in half and continue next Friday with The Great German Directors.

Let's start on the soft side of arthouse: In 11th century Persia, a surgeon’s apprentice disguises himself as a Jew in order to study at a school that does not admit Christians. If this sounds familiar, you have probably read Noah Gordon’s books. In April I was lucky to attend the premiere of filmmaker Philipp Stölzl directing Wagner’s Dutchman at the Staatsoper Berlin, where a critic mentioned that Stölzl (YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE, which we showed at last year’s GOETHE FILMS to a full house) was just finishing THE PHYSICIAN (Der Medicus) -- starring Ben Kingsley, Stellan Skarsgård and one of Germany’s new shooting stars, Elyas M’Barek (TURKISH FOR BEGINNERS). The lavish, 2-hour+ UFA production --entirely financed with German money, 26m Euros of it to be exact-- and shot at Germany’s Castle Querfurt and in Marokko, opens this Christmas. (trailer) Continue reading "In Production (& win Wenders' WINGS)" »

Dear Romuald Karmakar,

With 19 “clips” over 19 days, with protagonists ranging from animals at Berlin Zoo to neo Nazis on Alexanderplatz, I was surprised but happy to hear you are one of four artists, alongside Germany's favourite Ai Wei Wei (and his mother), to animate the German Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale starting tomorrow –or rather the French Pavilion, as both countries have traded places again this year, harking back to the first post-war Biennale. But that shouldn’t matter to you as a multi-hyphenated German-French-Iranian writer-director-producer of feature films and docs anyway. I was a bit worried about what kind of shot you would be given at the grandiose art spectacle when Deutschlandfunk radio commented on your inclusion in Susanne Gaensheimer's curation: "The film community ignores this honour, the art world is irritated. As usual, Romuald Karmakar polarizes." Continue reading "To Romuald Karmakar, c/o Venice Biennale" »