»Perspektive Deutsches Kino« at the Berlinale
This new section at the Berlinale will be watched closely by anyone and everyone who has more than just a passing interest in the fortunes of contemporary German cinema. Most festival guests are not aware of the broad spectrum of creativity in a national cinematography that prides itself on its plethora of film schools, community art houses, film museums, and festivals in just about every major city. Also, at last count, an estimated 200 million euros are spent annually on German film production. But unless you happen to be a seasoned traveler with time on your hands to visit academies or festivals or events where new film productions, big or small, are programmed regularly, the chances are you’ve only see the tip of the iceberg. Alfred Holighaus, curator of the »Perspective German Cinema« section, has some surprises in store for you.
From Hof he picked Antja Kruska and Judith Keil, Der Glanz von Berlin (Queens of Dust), the documentary hit of the festival about three cleaning women in Berlin and directed by a pair of self-taught filmmakers. From Locarno he selected Thomas Imbach’s Happiness Is a Warm Gun, a psychogram about the whys and wherefores behind the deaths of Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian in the Greens Party a decade ago. From Leipzig he took Stanislaw Mucha’s Absolut Warhola, documenting a quaint visit to the Slovak town that harbors an authentic pop-art museum filled with objects and memorabilia honoring a twice-removed native son, Andy Warhol, whose father was born and raised here before emigrating to Pittsburg. From Saarbrücken he culled Almut Getto’s Fickende Fische (Screwing Fish), arguably the best debut feature film of the season about a lad trying to bring some sense into his life after being infected with AIDS via a faulty blood transfusion, supported in turn by a young girl who believes life should be lived on the run in any case. Altogether, there are eleven films in the section, one for each day of the festival. What do they have in common? »A glance into the future,« says Alfred Holighaus.
But probably there’s much more to it than just that. The »Perspective German Cinema« is a voyage of discovery into the various genres of the cinema: experimental, documentary, fiction films of any length. Often, it’s the manner in which the filmmaker rubs out the lines between genres, blurs the focus on styles, and bundles thematic perspectives. And if there is one central aspect of the series, then it is the manner in which the Perspectives neatly link all the other sections of the festival by crossing the borders between young and old audiences, between a »Forum Film« and a »Panorama Picture«, between video and film, between Kunst und Kommerz. The series opens with a teaser right off the bat: 99euro-films, a compendium of »shorties« by a bunch of directors with one thing in common: each film was made with just 99 euros in the filmmaker’s pocket! Which film should one not miss? Maybe Manfred Walther’s 80,000 Shots, because it says something about the craft of filmmaking. Or try Katalin Gödrös’s Mutanten (Mutants), if only because it’s about the fantasies of a 14-year-old girl’s who’s into mutants and zombies and serial killers. Oh, well, see them all that’s why the section is called »Perspective German Cinema« We’re treading new terrain in the German cinema of today. Good luck, Alfred!
Editors