Locarno Continues to be a Home from Home for Films from Germany
By Martin Blaney | August 25, 2010
Artistic director Olivier Père applauding Franceso Rosi as he receives his Career Achievement Award, courtesy Festival del Film Locarno
The change of Locarno Film Festival’s artistic director from Frédéric Maire to Frenchman Olivier Père this year didn’t see any great change in the festival’s traditional support for films from Germany or made with German partners.
No less than four of the 18 titles selected by Père for the International Competition were produced with German involvement: ranging from the world premieres of Benedek Fliegauf’s first English language film Womb, Pia Marais’ second feature At Ellen’s Age, and Serbian filmmaker Oleg Novkovic’s White White World to the international premiere of Bruce LaBruce’s L.A. Zombie, co-produced by Berlin-based Jürgen Bruning.
In addition, the nightly open-air programme on Locarno’s Piazza Grande presented the international premiere of Baran bo Odar’s thriller The Silence, with Ulrich Thomsen, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Katrin Sass and Burghart Klaussner (which had its world premiere at the Filmfest München), Marvin Kren’s debut feature and Max Ophüls Preis winner Rammbock about zombies taking over the streets of Berlin, and Eran Riklis’ new feature The Human Resources Manager which was made as an Israeli-German- French co-production.
Moreover, a total of some 10,000 festival-goers are reported to have attended the screenings of the films in the festival’s retrospective dedicated to Ernst Lubitsch, which is now being staged over the following weeks by the Cinematheque suisse in Lausanne and the Cinematheque francaise in Paris.
While the top prize, the Golden Leopard, was awarded for the second year in a row to a Chinese filmmaker (Winter Vacation by Li Hongqi), two of the German competition films were also recognised: the International Jury named Jasna Duricic Best Actress for her role in White White World – which was also named Best Film by the association of international arthouse cinemas CICAE – and the festival’s Junior Jury awarded its „Environment is quality of life“ Prize to Benedek Fliegauf’s Womb.
Meanwhile, the UBS Audience Award went to The Human Resources Manager, and two prizes went to Anthony Vouardoux’s Swiss-German co-produced short Yuri Lennon’s Landing On Alpha 46 which was competing in the Leopards of Tomorrow competition.
Apart from streamlining the programme and making various personnel changes, Olivier Père also saw his first edition launching a pilot project, the Locarno Summer Academy to foster an exchange of knowledge between the generations “and thus sustain the flow of new blood into film, in Switzerland and abroad.”
The initiative, which was organised in collaboration with Lugano’s Swiss Italian University Film Summer School, received so many applications that the organisers had to increase the number of selected participants from 20 to 30 to attend presentations given by producer Peter Rommel, filmmaker Maren Ade and her producer Janine Jackowski and Georges Goldenstern of Cannes’ Cinefondation.
The participants came from as far away as the Philippines, Lebanon and the USA as well throughout Europe (including the film schools in Ludwigsburg, Munich and Babelsberg). The general verdict at the end of the week’s programme was that the young people had been able to make useful contacts for the future and could be returning to the festival one day with completed projects that they have made together.
While the films were naturally the focus of this year’s edition, Locarno nevertheless provided the ideal venue for parties and other social events held in swiss restaurants and on hotel terraces over the 11 days: for example, the Hans Ringier Foundation’s “Diner républicain” was held for the 35th time and attended by such figures as ex-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet and Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick before the Piazza Grande screening of the US film Cyrus on the first weekend.
More information about the 63rd edition of the Festival del Film Locarno can be found at http://www.pardo.ch
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ERA New Horizons Celebrates 10th Anniversary in Style
By Martin Blaney | August 4, 2010
A cinematic feast of riches was served up this year by the ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, from 22 July to 1 August as Poland’s biggest film festival entered its 10th year.
Over 500 films from 50 countries, including 240 features, were shown over the 11 days, with retrospectives dedicated to the works of the Quay Brothers, Laura Mulvey, Philippe Mora, Zeki Demirkubuz and Daniel Szczechura as well as tributes to Jean-Luc Godard and the late Polish master Wojciech Jerzy Has with complete reviews of their œuvres.
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German Films Previews Turn 10
By Martin Blaney | July 23, 2010
Bavaria International's Stefanie Zeitler (right) with Russian distributors, courtesy: Klaas Dierks/German Films
The 10th edition of the German Films Previews saw the showcase of new German productions being presented to around 90
international buyers in Hamburg for the first time from July 15-18. Previously, the event had been held in Munich (six times) and Cologne (the past three years), but the promotion agency German Films decided to travel further north to Hamburg to give the foreign guests a taste of another part of Germany.
The 2010 edition was organised with support from the regional film fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Studio Hamburg and Hamburg Marketing, and attracted buyers from as far afield as China, Japan, USA, Colombia, Thailand, Taiwan and Australia as well as most European territories.
The 19-title programme of screenings in the CinemaxX multiplex ranged from Eric Friedler’s docu-drama Aghet about the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians between 1915 and 1918 and Christine Hartmann’s family film Hanni & Nanni through Joseph Vilsmaier’s Himalayan drama Nanga Parbat to Baran bo Odar’s The Silence (Das letzte Schweigen) which had its world premiere at June’s Filmfest München and will be screened on the Piazza Grande in Locarno in August.
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Turkish Delight and 3D: Filmstiftung NRW’s International Film Conference at Medienforum NRW
By Martin Blaney | July 12, 2010
Producers Johannes Rexin and Bettina Brokemper of Heimatfilm with director Semih Kaplanoglu in front of Cologne Cathedral, courtesy Heike Herbertz/Filmstiftung NRW
The regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in May meant that the Medienforum NRW saw its dates this year at the end of June head-to-head with Filmfest München and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Despite having to cope with this competition as well as sweltering temperatures, the Filmstiftung NRW brought to a compact and varied programme of film screenings and discussion events over four days from 26-29 June.
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German Double Triumph in Moscow
By Martin Blaney | June 29, 2010
Johannes Naber received the Special Jury Prize for his debut The Albanian (Der Albaner), courtesy Vladimir Maximov/MIFF
The Silver St. George prize for Best Actor went to The Albanian's lead actor Nik Xhelilaj, courtesy Vladimir Maximov/MIFF
German cinema scored a double triumph at this year’s Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF, June 17 – 26) when feature debutant Johannes Naber’s immigration drama The Albanian (Der Albaner) picked up the Special Jury Prize and the “Silver St. George” for Best ActorSfor lead actor Nik Xhelilaj.
Naber’s screenplay, which he wrote with co-authors Christoph Silber and Alexander Stemmle, centres on 19-year-old Albanian Arben (played by Xhelilaj) who has no work and little future in his Albanian mountain village. His secret sweetheart Etleva has become pregnant, but his father is too poor to pay the bride price. Her family threaten revenge and so Arben decides to escape to Germany to find work and raise enough money to return home and marry Etleva before the child’s birth. However, once in Germany, he soon realises that, as an illegal immigrant and without any knowledge of the language, he will hardly have a chance to make the kind of money he dreamt of. Alone and full of longing for Etleva, Arben now struggles just to survive …
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Cluj’s Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrates a record edition
By Martin Blaney | June 9, 2010
Anocha Suwichakornpong, the winner of this year’s Transilvania Trophy for her debut Mundane History, with European Film Academy President Wim Wenders who was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award presented to an outstanding personality of European cinema. Courtesy TIFF
Thai filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong receiving the Transilvania Trophy from veteran German director Wim Wenders for her debut feature Mundane History and the gathering of the Romanian film community young and old on the stage of Cluj’s National Theatre at the awards ceremony – these are images which will stay etched in the mind from this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival which was held from May 28 to June 6.
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goEast turns 10
By Martin Blaney | May 17, 2010
Time flies when you are organizing a film festival, but it still seems remarkable that Wiesbaden’s goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film should have already been celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
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Immigration, Islam and Berlin – Shahada and Neukoelln Unlimited at the 60th Berlinale
By Tanja Meding | May 17, 2010
One of the themes dealt with by a number of films at this year’s 60th Berlinale was the lives of Muslims in today’s society. Two of these portrayed Muslims in today’s Berlin – each for themselves, but very much interrelated – one fictional (Shahada), one real (Neukölln Unlimited).
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KINO! 2010: New Films from Germany at MoMA, New York (April 2010)
By Tanja Meding | May 17, 2010
Since last year’s edition New York’s Museum of Modern Art has moved the dates of its annual survey of German films from a dark November slot to a sunny spring one in order to benefit from the new crop of German productions premiering at the Berlinale.
And so this year’s KINO! 2010: New Films from Germany was held between April 21 –30, featuring some familiar as well as fresh faces with an unusual high number of documentaries. Seven out of 10 full-length film slots were occupied by non-fiction films!
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From Tragedy to Comedy … and Back Again. German films at the 9th Tribeca Film Festival
By Tanja Meding | May 17, 2010
Just like the city itself, the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City has become hot spot for discoveries, especially for emerging filmmakers and documentaries. Now in its 9th year, the 2010 edition featured a substantial German contingent with four feature-length films and one short, each screening in important sections of the festival.
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