Dominik Graf

We already know just how wild, unpredictable, sensual, audacious and bursting with life German cinema can be from the film essay Verfluchte Liebe deutscher Film. Now Dominik Graf and Johannes Sievert continue their archaeological adventure tour to the margins, the underbelly, but also to the heart of German film and television, posing some valid questions along the way: why does public television no longer commission such prescient science fiction films as Smog (1973)? Why isn’t German cinema able to establish a more audacious relationship to genre? As in Carl Schenkel’s Abwärts (1984), for example, all it takes is a lift that gets stuck in an office building to make a claustrophobic psycho-thriller. Why do young directors not follow in the footsteps of the unruly Klaus Lemke, who simply shoots his films from the hip? And why do those who do get denied funding? The excerpts from these film and television marvels – such as Slavers – Die Sklavenjäger or Liebling – Ich muss dich erschießen – certainly make one want to run out and see them at once. Sadly, in many cases all that’s left of these lost treasures are the trailers or posters.[Berlinale.de]Read More »

Christoph Heider is caught as he abducts the body of his wife from the cemetery chapel. Marianne Heider allegedly died in a bathtub accident, but Heider considers her current partner Wilhelm Jordan guilty and would like to have her autopsied again abroad.Read More »

Ekkehard Knörer @ jumpcut.de wrote:
Dominik Graf makes movies for TV that are bigger than TV, but in his case this might be not a problem at all. It seems that his films work best as movies made for TV, TV as movies. This is because of the hackneyed stories he and his writers certainly twist and turn – without the intention, however, of turning them into art. Or rather, it is an art that turns its back to TV. This movement of turning its back remains important, though, as a gesture, a gesture that works best at the place it turns away from: TV. Dominik Graf’s art is an art of transcending TV by means of using it, of reproducing it in a radically transformed way. It remains recognizable in the stories, the motives – not the emotions, though.Read More »

Confectioner Mauritz is shot at close range. His wife, Thai woman Sita, whom he met two years ago through a marriage institute, is frightened and barely speaks German. Her five-year-old daughter, who she brought into the marriage, is also silent. The searches lead Commissioners Batic and Leitmayr to the Flügel Agency, that specialises in the placement of women with small children. Batic registers as an alleged customer with the institute.Read More »

Bittere Unschuld AKA Bitter Innocence
Andreas Brandt is the head of the research department in a pharmaceutical company. He earns enough to build a future with his wife Monica and his daughter Eva. But a merger puts his position in jeopardy. Brandt randomly observes Larssen, who’s responsible for the merger, raping the waitress Vanessa. Instead of helping her, he takes a file which has previously been stolen by Larssen. It contains incriminating evidence against Larssen. Brandt tries to blackmail Larssen, but Larssen is capable to shift the buck back to Brandt. Slowly Brandt’s family becomes involved…Read More »

Quote:
One of the highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, it’s already apparent, is a retrospective of the work of Dominik Graf, a genre specialist mostly unknown outside his natve Germany, who has worked in both film and TV, specialising mainly in crime dramas. The program also includes other German crime TV shows selected by Graf to contextualise his work (including Sam Fuller’s Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street and uber-rare work by Czech emigre Zbynek Brynych, best known otherwise for The Fifth Horseman is Fear).Read More »

On behalf of anonymous business clients, Philipp Keyser is trying to track down a missing painting. This is his chance to get back on his feet professionally. As a result, he has no qualms about using the young painter Alma in order to get closer to the painting’s owner. His search for the painting and the closeness to Alma, however, draw him into a vortex in which love and guilt are dangerously intermingled and at the center of which a picture shimmers – which might not even exist …Read More »

Synopsis:
Set in the boarding school milieu, the film depicts the meeting of shy Gregor and mysterious Billie. Billie has a son, her husband is in jail. Arthur, Gregor’s friend, is a serial Lothario, forever unfaithful to his girlfriend Pia. Both Arthur and Billie have had a similar mystical experience related to someone’s death. While Gregor believes that an elective affinity between two people preordains their lives, Arthur does not even subscribe to any possibility of romantic feelings between the sexes.
Arthur is a failure at school and becomes mixed up with criminal elements, Gregor goes on to attend university, and remains in pursuit of Billie who passes in and out of his life on several occasions.Read More »

Synopsis
The aristocratic sisters Charlotte and Caroline both fall in love with the controversial young writer and hothead Friedrich Schiller. Defying the conventions of their time, the sisters decide to share their love with Schiller. What begins playfully, almost as a game among the three of them, soon turns serious as it leads to the end of a pact.Read More »