11th Diagonale Festival of Austrian Films – Graz 2008
By Ron Holloway | August 19, 2008
The 11th Diagonale Festival of Austrian Films in the university city of Graz (1-6 April 2008), the last to be programmed under a team headed by Birgit Flos, celebrated at its outset the recent Oscar by Stefan Ruzowitzky for Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters), an Austrian-German coproduction. Even though this Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film had been screened at last year’s Diagonale, the rerun reminded a packed house that the writer-director had previously been awarded the Thomas Pluch Screenplay Prize at the 2007 Diagonale.
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Dieter Köster and Hannelore Conradsen Interview
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
As a filmmaking team, Berlin-based Dieter Köster and Hannelore Conradsen have conceived, written, directed, and edited over 150 films, documentaries, shorts, animation, video clips, music spots, and assorted other media productions. This KINO interview just skims the surface of their creative oeuvre.
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17th Cottbus Festival of East European Cinema 2007
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
With a record turnout of 16,000 spectators, the 17th Cottbus Festival of East European Cinema (6-10 November 2007) under its enterprising director Roland Rust confirmed its status as a leading event on the international circuit.
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Berlin Film Festival Boom – Art Houses & Cinematheques
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
The current Berlin Film Festival Boom owes its vitality to cinematheques in Filmstadt Berlin – like Kino Arsenal in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz, the venue of the Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek programmed by a team headed by Ulrich and Erika Gregor. Another is the Filmmuseum Potsdam, programmed by Bärbel Dalichow in the Marstall (the royal stables of the Prussian kings). And there’s Zeughaus Kino in Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin-Mitte, headed by Jörg Friess. Series often run simultaneously in all three venues.
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Meine Mütter – A Tale of Two Mothers
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
Indeed, as noted by Tanja Meding in her report on the Tribeca Film Festiva, Meine Mütter (Two Mothers) (Germany, 2007), subtitled Spurensuche in Riga (Searching for Clues in Riga), is Rosa von Praunheim’s “most autobiographical film to date.” A critical hit at the 2007 Hof Film Festival, his Two Mothers also scores as one of the finest documentaries of the German film season.
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Liebesleben – Maria Schrader Films Zeruya Shalev
By Tanja Meding | August 18, 2008
A name in German cinema, Maria Schrader has worked as an actress with such prominent directors as Margarete von Trotta (Rosenstrasse, 2003), Dani Levy (Fathers, 2002, Giraffe, 1998), Max Färberböck (Aimee and Jaguar, 1999), and Doris Dörrie (Am I Beautiful?, 1998) – whose cited films have garnered critical acclaim. Now Maria Schrader has added two more credits to her resumé: screenwriter and director of Liebesleben (Germany, 2007), an entry at the 2007 Film Fest Roma and programmed in the German Cinema section at the 2008 Berlinale.
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Berlin – 1. Mai – Kreuzberg Revolutionary Fantasy
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
Following the film’s gala premiere in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino at this year’s Berlinale, Berlin – 1. Mai (Germany, 2008) – codirected by a filmmaking quartet composed of Carsten Ludwig and Jan-Christoph Glaser, Sven Taddicken, Jakob Ziemnicki – was a cinch to screen later at select Berlin venues as a special event linked with the annual May 1st demonstration in Kreuzberg. In fact, that’s exactly what Berlin – 1st May is all about!
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Der Freischwimmer – Merry Mixture of Genres
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
Programmed in the Venice Days section at the 2007 Venice film festival, Andreas Kleinert’s Der Freischwimmer (Head Under Water) (Germany, 2007) comes across as merry mixture of genre cinema: partly psycho-thriller, partly black comedy, partly high school horror. And although “free swimmer” might be considered a better English translation of the title, Head Under Water offers hints of the weird nuances in the story.
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12th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival 2008
By Ron Holloway | August 18, 2008
Asked by a Korean colleague if I would be willing to serve on the international jury for the 12th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (18-27 July 2008) – “PiFan” for short – I responded that I wasn’t quite sure what a “fantastic” film is in the first place. Not a problem, he said, for he had heard that grouse often enough before. As it turned out, when I arrived at this bustling satellite city on the outskirts of Seoul (now known officially as Bucheon instead of Puchon), there, above a prominent “PiFan” logo, was a banner that highlighted “Love, Fantasy and Adventure” as the festival’s all-embracing theme.
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Der Fischer und seine Frau – German Folktale à la Japanese
By Nina Moritz | August 13, 2008
Mantje, mantje timpetee, Buttje, Buttje in der See, Meine Frau, die Ilsebill, will nicht so wie ich wohl will – Old German “Plattdeutsch” Maxim. In her new film Der Fischer und seine Frau (The Fisherman and His Wife) (2005) Doris Dörrie reaches back to the well-known folk tale about a fisherman and his wife, the story of a bewitched, talking fish who satisfies the greed of the fisherman’s wife.
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