Kino 2002: New German Films
November 8–17, 2002
German cinema continues to distinguish itself by the number of strong new filmmakers it develops and the veteran ones it sustains. The four debut features in this annual exhibition–by Ulrich Köhler, Maria Speth, Sven Taddicken, and Iain Dilthey–are striking in their distinctive voices, each charting a different aspect of youthful identity. Other filmmakers Heinrich Broeler, Caroline Link, and Gerd Conradt use fiction and documentary to confront their nation's catastrophic history, and humor abounds in the films of Andreas Dresen, Stanislaw Mucha, and Michael "Bully" Herbig.
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator. Presented in association with the Export-Union of German Films, Munich, and with the special assistance of its United States East Coast representative, Oliver Mahrdt. Thanks go to the German Information Center, the German Consulate, and Goethe House for their support.
2001. Directed by Heinrich Broeler. Screenplay by Broeler, Horst
Königstein. With Armin Müller-Stahl, Jürgen Hentsch,
Monica Bleibtreu. The epic story of brother novelists Thomas and
Heinrich Mann is brilliantly told through scripted performances,
documentary footage, and interviews with over sixty people who knew
the Mann family, including Elisabeth Mann Borgese, Thomas's youngest
daughter, who died earlier this year. In German with English subtitles.
Video. 311 min., plus intermission.
2001. Written and
directed by Caroline Link. With Juliane Köhler. A Jewish man
summons his wife and daughter to flee Nazi Germany and join him
in Kenya. Based on the autobiography of Stefanie Zweig, Nowhere
in Africa describes the family's hardscrabble existence on an
African farm through the eyes of a child who, unlike her distressed
mother, sees their new life as wondrous. In German with English
subtitles. Courtesy Zeitgeist Films. 141 min.
2001. Directed by Stanislaw Mucha. In an empty field in Mikova,
Ruthenia, stands the "only Pop museum in Europe," dedicated to Carpathia's
most famous son, Andrijku Warhola. Tracking down the Warhola family,
Mucha discovers that "Warhol's uncles and aunts have lots of time,
they have schnapps, they are out of work, and they have each other.
They are the proudest people under God's sun ever since they heard
on TV that Andy wasn't just a house painter in New York, but an
artist of world renown." In Ruthenian, Slovakian, and German with
English subtitles. 80 min.
2001. Written and directed by Maria
Speth. With Sabine Timoteo. Working in a cafeteria and in a nightclub
as a disco dancer, Lynn waits for what the days bring. She moves
comfortably between two lovers, her impulsive lifestyle mimicking
the unsettled atmosphere of Berlin itself. Winner of the Grand Jury
prize at Créteil International Women's Film Festival. In German
with English subtitles. 120 min.
2000. Directed by Iain Dilthey. Screenplay by Dilthey, Silke Pazich.
With Eva Löbau. Given up for adoption as a child, an impressionable
seventeen-year-old desperately searches for a family. Her determination
takes her from Vienna to a village outside Stuttgart, where against
all reason, she refuses to surrender her dream. In German with English
subtitles. 62 min.
2002. Directed by Andreas Dresen. Screenplay
by Dresen and the cast. With Steffi Kühnert, Gabriela Maria
Schmeide, Axel Prahl. Grill Point is a modern comedy about
four ordinary friends from an ordinary town in the former East Germany,
who jump-start their lives almost to the point of electrocution.
In German with English subtitles. 105 min.
2002. Directed by Dominik Graf. Screenplay by Graf, Markus Busch.
With Karoline Eichhorn. Abandoned by her lover while on vacation
in Corsica, Katrin meets a delinquent teenager who attaches himself
to her. Veteran director Graf uses the digital camera as a tool
for expressive filmmaking, shooting to the rhythms of a troubled
heart in a desolate landscape. In German with English subtitles.
116 min.
2001. Directed by Sven Taddicken. Screenplay by Matthias Pacht.
With Marie-Luise Schramm. An unsentimental and unsettling sex comedy
about the hormonal friskiness of three siblings. In German with
English subtitles. 87 min.
2002. Directed by Thomas Schadt. A day in the life of contemporary
Berlin, which after a century of fascism, war, and division is dramatically
different from the one portrayed in Walter Ruttman's great city
symphony from 1921 (see below). Documentarian Schadt employs many
of Ruttman's filmic strategies and visual motifs, choreographing
his mesmerizing images to a new score by Helmut Oehring and Iris
ter Schiphorst. No narration. 82 min.
1927. Directed by Walter Ruttman. Scenario by Ruttman, Karl Freund.
55 min.
2001. Directed by Urs
Eggers. Screenplay by Jens Urban. With Mario Adorf, Bruno Ganz,
Annie Girardot. A Holocaust survivor in his eighties believes that
a well-respected priest was his tormentor in a concentration camp.
Against the counsel of his friends, he decides to confront the clergyman.
In German with English subtitles. 85 min.
2002. Written and directed by Robert Fischer and Uli Lommel. With
Wim Wenders, Hanna Schygulla. A documentary made on the twentieth
anniversary of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's death (June 10,
1982). Fassbinder, who left an astonishing legacy of twenty-nine
feature films and twelve television productions, was deeply influenced
by Hollywood cinema. In German with English subtitles. Video. 70
min.
2001. Directed by Gerd Conradt. Conradt, a former classmate of Holger
Meins at the Berlin Film Academy, traces Meins's path from boy scout
and young artist of promise to helmsman of the Red Army Faction,
a group that terrorized Germany in the early 1970s. Conradt interviews
Meins's father, his lovers, and his Berlin classmates, including
the filmmakers Michael Ballhaus, Harun Farocki, Peter Lilienthal,
and Wolfgang Petersen. In German with English subtitles. 90 min.
2002. Directed by Ulrich Köhler. Screenplay by Köhler,
Henrike Goetz. With Lennie Burmeister. One hot midsummer, a young
recruit retreats to his parent's empty bungalow on the outskirts
of town instead of returning to the barracks. When his brother and
a girlfriend arrive unexpectedly, he gets into some nasty emotional
difficulty. In German with English subtitles. 84 min.
2001.
Directed by and starring Michael "Bully" Herbig. Screenplay by Herbig,
Alfons Biedermann, Rick Kavanian, Murmel Clausen. Taking as his
starting point the Teutonic enthusiasm for all things Native American,
and drawing on Sergio Leone and Mel Brooks for inspiration, Herbig
concocts a madcap comedy about the "true and thrilling" adventures
of the Apache Abahachi and his "white man" blood brother. In German
with English subtitles. 87 min.
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