Quote:
In the middle of an economic crisis, the workers are living in poverty and struggling to find a little happiness and get a warm meal. Mother Krause lives with her two grown-up children, as well as a shady “bed lodger” and his lover – a prostitute with a child – on just a few square metres. In next to no time, tensions build up, and soon crime is involved too. Mother Krausen’s painstakingly preserved order collapses. This story has lost hardly any of its relevance. In those days, columns of marching workers calling out “Join the ranks!” indicated a possible way out. But the older generation went to the dogs.Read More »
Germany
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Phil Jutzi – Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück AKA Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness (1929)
1921-1930DramaGermanyPhil JutziSilentWeimar Republic cinema -
Hartmut Bitomsky – B-52 (2001)
2001-2010DocumentaryGermanyHartmut BitomskyQuote:
”The B-52 is a very large aircraft,” a crew member says in the straightforward new documentary ”B-52,” which begins a two-week run today at Film Forum. Several clean-cut Air Force personnel give the aircraft’s stats, which include a weight of 184,000 pounds when empty and a wingspan of 185 feet. The plane has been around for what feels like forever, and in this respect it seems like the ordnance version of a great white shark, an enormous and apparently efficient killing machine that hasn’t evolved much since its creation ”over a weekend in a hotel in 1948.” (It was first presented to the military in 1952.)Read More » -
Jürgen Böttcher – In Georgien AKA In Georgia (1988)
1981-1990DocumentaryGermanyJürgen BöttcherQuote:
In 1986 and 1987, Jürgen Böttcher and his crew travelled to Georgia to film this fascinating country and its people. Böttcher, the painter, was particularly interested in the art of Georgian painter Niko Pirosmanishvili whose oeuvre he had seen in an exhibition in Berlin 20 years ago. Although it was clear for him that times had changed, he reckoned that some of the atmosphere depicted in Pirosmanishvilis paintings should still be there. Thomas Plenert, his director of photography, had been in Georgia a couple of years before, and had been overwhelmed. Another influence was Georgias most well-known contemporary filmmaker, Otar Iosseliani.Read More » -
Joe May – Ihre Majestät die Liebe AKA Her Majesty Love (1931)
1931-1940ComedyGermanyJoe MayWeimar Republic cinemaQuote:
The story is pleasent fluff where Franz Lederer has to marry a rich woman in order to be chief executive of a big firm. He pretends to be in love Käthe von Nagy’s bar girl and just guess how this story could end.Read More » -
Günter Peter Straschek – Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland AKA Film Emigration from Nazi Germany (1975)
1971-1980DocumentaryGermanyGünter Peter StraschekEssay Film Festival:
Straschek was among the first cohort to graduate from the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB). He started studying film in 1966, alongside Hartmut Bitomsky, Harun Farocki, Holger Meins, Helke Sander and others. The Director of the DFFB confiscated his student film, A Western for the SDS (Ein Western für den SDS) (1967-1968), which led to an occupation of his office and eventually the dismissal of Straschek and other students in 1968.Read More »
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Werner Herzog – Mein liebster Feind – Klaus Kinski AKA My Best Fiend (1999)
1991-2000ArthouseDocumentaryGermanyWerner HerzogQuote:
The love-hate relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski is utterly puzzling to outsiders. The film is about the deep trust between an actor and a director and their independently and simultaneously hatched plans to murder one another.Read More » -
Robert Reinert – Opium (1919)
1911-1920GermanyRobert ReinertSilentWeimar Republic cinemaQuote:
English doctor Professor Gesellius is in China researching the effects of opium. He frees a young woman named Sin from a den of inequity run by Nung Chiang. When he sails for home with the girl, Chiang swears vengeance. In England, it emerges that Sin is the illegitimate daughter of one of Gesellius’ colleagues, whose son is having an affair with the doctor’s wife. The son is poisoned and Gesellius becomes a murder suspect. He flees to India with Sin, pursued by the vengeful Nung Chiang … Read More » -
Curtis Bernhardt – Die letzte Kompagnie AKA The Last Company (1930)
1921-1930Curtis BernhardtDramaGermanyWar -
Martin Hellberg – Thomas Müntzer [+Extras] (1956)
1951-1960EpicGermanyMartin HellbergThuringia, 1525: The south of Germany experienced one of the few great popular movements in German history – the Peasants’ War. This opulent historical film describes the fate of the priest Thomas Müntzer, who becomes the leader of the revolt and the Reformation in Germany. He boldly advocates the teachings of Martin Luther, but while the latter turns away from the masses, Müntzer is active as their advocate. But even he can not avert the fateful defeat…Read More »