The Museum of Modern Art marks its 31st annual survey of recent German cinema with a move from the fall to the spring, when new German films that screened at the Hof and Berlin film festivals are available for their first New York screenings. This year’s selection includes features by three leading directors: Andreas Dresen (Whisky with Vodka), Hans-Christian Schmid (The Wondrous World of Laundry) and Margarethe von Trotta (Vision). New this year to Kino! are filmmakers Susanne Schneider (The Day Will Come) and Jan Raiber, whose documentary All My Fathers premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February. German history plays a significant role in Enrique Sanchez Lansch’s The Reichsorchester: The Berlin Philharmonic and the Third Reich, Comrade Couture, about the fashion “industry” in former East Germany, and the Oscar-nominated Rabbit à la Berlin, about livestock on the other side of the Berlin Wall. More current history is explored in From Ramstein with Love, about the large American military base and hospital in the Rhineland. Rounding out the series is Next Generation 2009, which comprises 12 short films from German film academies, and three recent acquisitions to MoMA’s film collection: Hans Christian Schmid’s Requiem, Hans Weingartner’s The Edukators, and Philip Groening’s Into Great Silence.
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, in cooperation with German Films Service + Marketing (Munich) and its New York representative, Oliver Mahrdt.
Kino! is presented with the support of the Goethe Institute, New York. Thanks to Christian Dorsch, Managing Director, and Nicole Kaufmann, Project Coordinator, German Films Service + Marketing; and to all participating filmmakers, producers, and directors.