German Film @ Canada - Goethe-Institut

With cinemas and film festivals in Canada, Germany and across the world currently closed or postponing their live programming, we are discovering the virtues of streaming. Among the offerings, one of the best is Kanopy. The platform is an award-winning video streaming service providing access to more than 30,000 independent and documentary films ─ titles of unique social and cultural value from The Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, Media Education Foundation, and thousands of independent filmmakers.

You can use it for free for example through the Toronto Public Library. Download the Kanopy app, log in with your (also free) library account, and a portal of high-quality global content awaits.

To sift through the catalogue, I will curate a little series of my personal film recommendations here and on social media‬⁩ #MyKanopyKanon. #Docs #features #shorts #femalefilmmakers #arthouse #mainstream ... Let me know your favourites and film viewing experiences and let's turn social distancing into social connecting.

☆ A contemporary classic Continue reading "#MyKanopyKanon bespoke streaming tips 1" »

"Strippers displace Berlinale!“ a lurid tabloid headline revealed before Christmas. And yes, of course, I clicked through. Magic Mike the Musical man-spreading it at Berlinale Palast --home to a vast number of industry screenings and the competition's red carpet-- was just one of the calamities on the horizon for the new Berlinale team at the end of 2019. Newly installed co-directors AD Carlo Chatrian, formerly of Locarno, and ED Mariette Rissenbeek, formerly of German Films (my job entrance interview with her), had a good number of curveballs thrown their way –many of them craftily solved by now-- but also threw a couple of early wrenches themselves. Statements like "We are no glamour machine“ and "We are not Berlin Fashion Week“ led to a reprimand by the festival’s main financier, Culture Minister Monika Grütters, who made it quite clear that she expects fireworks as well as "programmatic and atmospheric changes“. If the school principal approach doesn’t bear fruit, Helen "The Queen“ Mirren will save the red carpet when accepting this year‘s honorary Golden Bear, alongside Jeremy Irons giving most likely not boring remarks as jury president. The Berlinale is known for being "political", perhaps featuring two of Britain's best actors is a love letter to the Brexiting nation.

Weeks before the 70th Berlinale (re)starts, things are looking up. Continue reading "#Berlinale2020: Year 70 or Year 1?" »

Wim Wenders is back big time. As in a sweeping, swooning movie billed as a romantic thriller. I can just imagine how he must have itched to shoot this one in his favourite 3D (but couldn’t get the funding). SUBMERGENCE is not akin to any previous (more innovative or art-housy) Wenders I can think of --not WINGS OF DESIRE, not PARIS, TEXAS, not EVERY THING WILL BE FINE. That of course can be a good statement about a filmmaker at 72 with 60+ films. In many ways, it is very Wenders-ian: emotional, poetic, philosophical, not afraid of grand symbolic gestures, trying to shine light into human darkness.

Add unusually scientific and political. “An utterly contemporary story, thrilling and deeply moving at the same time, spanning continents and oceans, facing two big threats to our world today: climate change and terrorism.” By the time of the #TIFF17 world premiere of SUBMERGENCE, Wim Wenders' 2016 comment on his latest feature project has taken on a whole new weight, between Barcelona and hurricane Irma. Continue reading "#TIFF17 review: SUBMERGENCE. To love and protect" »

Hollywood stars like Jennifer Lawrence, George Clooney, Halle Berry and Benedict Cumberbatch have been announced to descend upon TIFF17, and the German talent are not far behind, with a record VIP list of guests en route to Toronto:

Director Valeska Grisebach (script consultant on last year’s run-away hit TONI ERDMANN) comes from Berlin for her North American premiere of WESTERN (trailer). Unveiled and a critical hit at Cannes Film Festival 2017, the modern-day Western is part of Contemporary World Cinema at TIFF17. ""Rarely has German cinema been more present or intelligent," gushed FAZ newspaper. Review to follow here for the TIFF opening on 7 September.

Fatih Akin, last in town with SOUL KITCHEN eight years ago, returns to TIFF with the North American premiere of his political thriller IN THE FADE (trailer), a Special Presentation. Acting in her native German for the first time, Diane Kruger won Best Actress at Cannes 2017 for her difficult role in this film – catch her on the red carpet with Akin at TIFF17. Continue reading "Massive German talent at #TIFF17" »

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)" »

by Jutta Brendemühl
graphic design by Isabelle Choi

The Berlinale is just like its director Dieter Kosslick: Technically pension age but not slowing down, and wittier, slier, bolder, more comfortable with itself than before.

As the Berlinale celebrates its 65th anniversary, Golden Bear-honoured guest Wim Wenders turns 70 with a new film and is enjoying his third Oscar nomination.

We have a new Andreas Dresen world premiere to look forward to, 25 years after he was the first young East German filmmaker to show at the 1990 Berlinale, in a not-yet-reunited Germany. Another first: A Terence Malick world premiere in the German capital. Kosslick promises his friend’s elusive presence (in 2006, both men stood outside during THE NEW WORLD premiere, so you might have to look for his “presence”).

Within the framework of a strong European Competition, the DOWNFALL’s Oliver Hirschbiegel stays with his previous preoccupation in the Hitler assassination attempt drama ELSER - 13 MINUTES , Continue reading "#Berlinale2015: 65 and proud" »

The famous German arthouse director and photographer has established a foundation in his hometown of Dusseldorf that will make his work accessible to the public. This year, the first Wim Wenders Scholarships have been awarded to young filmmakers and video artists to help them further innovative cinematic storytelling. German art magazine Monopol talked to him about his legacy project:

Mr. Wenders, how did you get the idea to create the foundation?
There have been several reasons. For one, I have had many talks with Pina Bausch over the years, who had always been thinking of creating a foundation to preserve her work. And then, suddenly, it was too late and she couldn’t do it anymore. After her death, her son succeeded in creating the Pina Bausch Foundation in Wuppertal. But still, it made me reflect upon the fact that there are things that shouldn’t be postponed. Then, in 2012, after many years I was presented with the first and probably only chance to reacquire the major part of my complete film works all at once.

Personally I haven’t had the capital for that, but even if I had been able to raise the funds I didn’t find it that worthwhile to become the private “owner” of this big package of around 50 films, some shorter, some longer. I thought it was much better if that work could be forever removed from private access and, in a way, belonged only to itself and therefore to the community. Only the legal form of a foundation could provide this kind of protection. So my wife and I decided to create the Wim Wenders Foundation.

Does the foundation also contain your photographs, poems and books?

Not yet, but this is the plan. Gradually, not only will my film archive but also my photographs, artwork and writings be included in the WWS.

Why did you choose Dusseldorf as a location and not, let’s say, Berlin?

Dusseldorf is the place where I was born and where my family had lived for many generations. I feel strongly connected to the city and the province of North Rhine-Westphalia. Continue reading "4 questions for Wim Wenders" »

The most exciting German film news (again) comes out of Canada. Legendary German actors Bruno Ganz (“Wings of Desire”, Hitler in “Downfall”), Gunter Lamprecht (“Berlin Alexanderplatz”) and Heinz Lieven (most recently in Sorrentino’s Cannes entry “Cheyenne”) will all star in Atom Egoyan’s new thriller “Remember”, alongside the film’s lead, no less legendary hometown boy Christopher Plummer, fresh from his 2012 Oscar for “Beginners”.

The film, about to start shooting in Toronto, follows a man’s hunt for a Nazi war criminal who killed his family.

Staying on subject with German 20th century history --ample fodder for German and international films--, Berlin auteur Christian Petzold is working on “Phoenix” for a potential fall release as writer-director with his outstanding "Barbara" cast Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld, plus one of my new favourite actors, Nina Kunzendorf. (If you want to revisit “Barbara”, we’ll show it again this fall). Here Hoss is a Holocaust survivor who returns home to find her husband with another woman.
Continue reading "New German Films: Akin, Petzold, Herzog, more" »

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" »