Variety review:
The delightfully impish outrageousness of Rosa von Praunheim turns to more serious contemplation of his origins in the German helmer’s engrossing family docu, “Two Mothers.” Told in 2000 by his 94-year-old mother that he was adopted at an orphanage in Riga, von Praunheim sets out to track down his natural parents. Though such journeys are hardly new, the helmer’s fearless honesty and WWII backdrop make for compelling viewing. Born Holger Radtke in 1942, adopted as Holger Mischwitzky, von Praunheim approaches his search with conflicted emotions, since the parents who raised him provided the kind of loving, supportive home an enfant terrible filmmaker needs to survive. Read More »
Germany
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Rosa von Praunheim – Meine Mütter – Spurensuche in Riga AKA Two Mothers (2007)
2001-2010DocumentaryDramaGermanyQueer Cinema(s)Rosa von Praunheim -
Ulrike Ottinger – Paris Calligrammes (2020)
2011-2020ArthouseDocumentaryGermanyUlrike OttingerFrom a topographic perspective, Ulrike Ottinger’s cinema is mostly located between Berlin and remote places in the Far East or the Far North. In Paris Calligrammes, she explores the landscape of her memories of the city that she called home for 20 years and that helped shape her beginnings as a painter and filmmaker. Ottinger moved to Paris in her twenties and immersed herself in the cultural scene of the 1950s populated by heroes of the avant-garde and a new generation of artists and intellectuals. Read More »
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Arthur Robison – Die Todesschleife AKA Looping the Loop (1928)
1921-1930Arthur RobisonDramaGermanySilentWeimar Republic cinemaQuote:
Circus and variety films were a popular genre in the silent film era. This was Robert Reinert’s last film collaboration; he died before the production was finished. It tells the story of a clown who hides his identity while courting a young female artist. The atmospheric sets by Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig, the masterful direction by Arthur Robison, and especially the dramatic performance by Werner Krauss raise the film considerably over other works in the genre. The elaborate digital restoration by the Munich Film Museum displays the film’s visual beauty.Read More » -
Jacob Fleck & Luise Fleck – Mädchen am Kreuz AKA Crucified Girl (1929)
1921-1930DramaGermanyJacob FleckLuise FleckSilentWeimar Republic cinemaQuote:
Luise Kolm-Fleck staged a number of melodramas and Heimat films with her husband in Germany and Austria before they fled together to Shanghai ahead of rising fascism. The Filmarchiv Austria has restored several films by this previously forgotten film pioneer which demonstrate her impressive directorial skill and astonishing commitment to the treatment of societal and social problems. The focus of CRUCIFIED GIRL is a young woman whose carefree life changes when she is the victim of rape.Read More » -
Hartmut Bitomsky – Bombardement und Bunker aka Kino Flächen Bunker (1991)
Documentary1991-2000ExperimentalGermanyHartmut BitomskyKINO FLÄCHEN BUNKER (Das Kino und die Schauplätze) [Cinema, Surface, Bunker (The Cinema and its Settings)] which is also known as »Bombardement und Bunker« [Barrage and Bunker] is an essay film about the (narrative) space imagined by fiction films. Reflections and associations about movement in space as the basis for every kind of story-telling. The film is sometimes referred to as part of Bitomsky’s Cinema Trilogy. Sequences from over 20 movies are quoted and commented on by a team of three »researchers« (Bitomsky, Petzold, Tanner) in a sort of laboratory. TV-monitors, production stills or screenshots are used as well as quotations from books. A long night’s work.Read More »
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Florian Eichinger – Die Hände meiner Mutter AKA Hands of a Mother (2016)
2011-2020DramaFlorian EichingerGermanyQuote:
Tensions are already mounting during a family celebration on a riverboat when Markus (Andreas Döhler) has a sickening flash of a long-repressed memory. His mother, he realises, sexually abused him, and it’s only now that the thirty-nine-year-old husband and father is beginning to grasp the enormity of the events that his child’s mind shuttered long ago.Read More » -
Hartmut Bitomsky – Das Kino und der Wind und die Photographie aka The Cinema and the Wind and Photography (1991)
1991-2000DocumentaryGermanyHartmut BitomskyDAS KINO UND DER WIND UND DIE PHOTOGRAPHIE
Sieben Kapitel uber dokumentarische FilmeThe Cinema and the Wind and Photography
Seven Chapters about Documentary Films“That’s how we’ll begin: the street of the first film. This street is located in a suburb of Lyon. That’s where the factory of the Lumiere brothers was. They made the first films for cinema. These were documentary films.”Read More »
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Wolfgang Staudte – Der Untertan AKA The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951)
1951-1960ComedyDramaGermanyWolfgang StaudteSynopsis:
‘This historical satire, based on Heinrich Mann’s world-famous novel, Der Untertan, is ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time. In Mann’s biting critique of conservative Wilhelmine Germany, written during WWI, Diederich Hessling learns an important lesson for an ambitious man: one must first serve power to gain power for oneself. From then on, his modus operandi is to bow to superiors and kick underlings.’
– DEFA Film LibraryRead More » -
Rosa von Praunheim – Dein Herz in meinem Hirn AKA Your Heart in My Brain (2005)
2001-2010CampGermanyHorrorQueer Cinema(s)Rosa von PraunheimQuote:
For whatever reason, this low-budget shot-on-DV film seems to have never been released in any format and is very rare. This is a web rip and the best (and only) print of the film currently available. Inspired by the gay German cannibalism case involving Armin Meiwes (whose story inspired no less than three other films, including Martin Weisz’s Grimm Love (2006) and Marian Dora’s Cannibal (2006) and Ulli Lommel’s Diary of a Cannibal), von Praunheim’s film caused much controversy, mainly because it was partially funded by German tax money.Read More »