THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART PRESENTS ITS ANNUAL SURVEY OF FILMS FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
Now in Its Eighteenth Year, This Acclaimed Series Presents the
New York Premieres of Fifteen New Feature Films Including Seven Non-Fiction
Works
Recent Films From Germany
December 631,
1996
Recent Films from Germany, the eighteenth annual survey of
new films from the Federal Republic of Germany, opens at The Museum of
Modern Art on December 6, 1996. This year's edition introduces fifteen
feature films, including seven non-fiction works and numerous
writing-directing debuts by new and veteran filmmakers. As well as
showcasing a cross-section of German filmmaking talent, the series features
several works that address twentieth-century German history and its
ramifications and the changing social conditions brought on in the 1990s by
reunification. The series concludes on December 31.
"Current German
cinema seems to me particularly strong in two areas," says Laurence
Kardish, Curator and Coordinator of Film Exhibitions, Department of Film
and Video, who has organized the series since its inception. "There are the
unabashed, thoroughly professional comedies of the sexes, as exemplified
this year by Workaholic. And there are the works that use the
documentary form in new and fresh ways, as in the case of Werner
Schroeter's Embers of Love, about passion and song, and Andrei
Ujica's Out of the Present."
American-born Sharon von
Wietersheim's Workaholic (1996), the tale of a young woman's plot to
gain her busy boyfriend's attention, is one of four comedies in the series.
The others are Hans-Christian Schmid's Nach fünf im Urwald (It's a
Jungle Out There) (1995), the story of a provincial politician's
teenage daughter who runs away to Munich; and, sounding a blacker comic
note, Matthias Glasner's Sexy Sadie (1996), which follows an escaped
prisoner and his nurse/hostage, and Volker Einrauch's Die Mutter des
Killers (The Killer's Mother) (1996), the saga of an undertaker who
dreams of killing his unfaithful wife.
Among the other highlights of
the series are seven unconventional non-fiction films, including
Abfallprodukte der Liebe (Embers of Love) (1996), the opening night
feature by veteran film and stage director Werner Schroeter. In this
compelling work, which rests intriguingly between documentary and fantasy,
acclaimed opera singers and their intimates are invited to a chateau to
explore the language of love.
The other documentaries are Donatello and
Fosco Dubini's life study Jean Seberg—American Actress (1995),
which uses rare interviews, film clips, private photographs, and
conversations taped by the FBI to trace the actress's rise and fall; Wolf
Gaudlitz's Taxi Lisboa (Lisbon Taxi) (1996), which takes the viewer
on a tour of Lisbon as seen through the eyes of a 100–year
old taxi driver;
Thomas Mitscherlich's Reisen ins Leben (Journey into Life) (1995), a
powerful examination of the lives of children who survived Auschwitz;
Andres Veiel's Die Überlebenden (The Survivors) (1996), an
exploration of the high incidence of suicide among young West Germans;
Helmut Wietz's Wüste WestBerlin (West Berlin Desert) (1995),
which chronicles the art scene in West Berlin between 1961 and 1991; and
Andrei Ujica's Out of the Present (1995), a highly unusual and
lyrical study, most of it shot in outer space, of a cosmonaut mission that
begins in the Soviet Union and ends, following the fall of Communism, in
Russia.
Recent Films from Germany also includes four powerful
dramas. Gordian Maugg's Die Kaukasische Nacht (The Caucasian Night)
(1995) looks at a German family's experience of Caucasia after the fall of
Communism; Ivan Fila's Lea (1996) follows the relationship between a
German man and the traumatized woman whom he buys from her stepparents;
Oliver Storz's Drei Tage im April (Three Days in April) (1995)
relates a historical tale set in a small German village during the final
weeks of the Third Reich; and Heiner Stadler's Warshots (1996),
filmed in Northern Ireland, Somalia, and Lebanon, plumbs the characters of
a group of war correspondents and press photographers in battle.
Recent Films from Germany is presented in association with
Susanne Reinker, Public Relations Director, and Tanja Englhart, Public
Relations Assistant, Export-Union des Deutschen Films in Munich; and with
the help of Stephan Nobbe, Director, and Brigitte Hubmann, Program
Coordinator, Goethe House, New York. The program is made possible with the
support of the participating filmmakers, producers, and German
distributors.
