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Rock ‘n’ roll comes to Germany just ahead of the Berlin Wall in “The Red Cockatoo.” Stylish period piece is weighed down by a too-familiar love triangle, generating nostalgia for a difficult time not nearly as successfully as clear predecessor “Good Bye Lenin!”
Unlike helmer Wolfgang Becker’s “Good Bye Lenin!,” “Cockatoo” will work best for those with some knowledge of the early days of the German Democratic Republic and tension generated by the Wall throughout the country.Read More »
“In this epic-scale saga of life on both sides of the law, Max Riemelt plays Marek Grosky, a Russian Jew who immigrated to Germany in the 1920s. Grosky is one of a large number of Russians who have fled their homeland and settled in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. While Marek has become a police officer in Berlin, his sister Stella (Marie Baumer) is married to a high-ranking crime chieftain, and the cop finds himself caught between two worlds, torn between his devotion to duty and his ties to his family. As a war rages between criminal factions in Charlottenburg, Marek witnesses the death of his brother and falls for a Ukrainian woman who has been brought to Germany to work as a prostitute. Im Angesicht des Verbrechens (aka In Face Of The Crime) was originally created as a ten-part series for German television; it was later re-edited into a pair of feature-length films which were screened as part of the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival. “
by Mark DemingRead More »
“A documentary-like drama about an emotionally frozen woman who opens up to life again…” ~Filmdienst
Synopsis:
Forensic biologist Inga is so busy with her work at the institute that it takes her a while to notice how lonely she is after separating from her husband. When it is claimed that she has a half-sister and the falconer asks her to look after a baby falcon, she falls into a vortex of painful feelings.Read More »
In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo (Jeanette Hain), a big-city police psychologist, arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with open arms by Vera (Susanne Wolff), a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false appearances and deeply hidden truths.Read More »
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Berlin, 1931. Jakob Fabian (Tom Schilling) works in the advertising department of a cigarette factory by day and drifts through bars, brothels and artist studios with his wealthy and debauched friend Labude (Albrecht Schuch) by night. When Fabian meets the beautiful and confident Cornelia (Saskia Rosendahl), he manages to shed his pessimistic attitude for a brief moment and falls in love. Not long after, he falls victim to the great wave of layoffs sweeping the city, plunging him back into a depression, while Cornelia’s career as an actress is taking off thanks to her wealthy boss and admirer – an arrangement that Fabian finds difficult to accept. But it’s not just his world that is falling apart… Veteran German director Dominik Graf (Beloved Sisters) wowed audiences at the Berlin Film Festival with this dazzling adaptation of Erich Kästner’s classic of Weimar literature, set amid the twilight hedonism of pre-Nazi Germany.Read More »
1930s Berlin. Dr. Jakob Fabian, who works by day in advertising for a cigarette company and by night wanders the streets of the city, falls in love with an actress. As her career begins to blossom, prospects for his future begin to wane.
4 wins, 12 nominationsRead More »
“München – Geheimnisse einer Stadt” ist ein Essay über das Leben in Städten, ein Mosaik aus Geschichten, Sehnsüchten und Träumen und eine Liebeserklärung an München – und alle anderen Städte.Read More »
Clemens Brentano, an artist in his prime, no longer wants to be an artist. The poet and bon vivant goes to the bedside of the nun Anna Katharina Emmerich as a simple “scribe of God’s wonders” to write down her visions and views. Emmerich became famous for her stigmata of Christ, which appeared on her chest, forehead and hands. In order to receive comfort and encouragement, believers make pilgrimages to the sickbed of the weakened nun. Brentano places great hope in his encounter with her. But the meeting of the famous poet and the nun becomes a crossroads for both of them.Read More »
Don’t we all feel the same longing for German films that break ranks, that are wild and sensual, that possess a true physicality? Dominik Graf’s thrillers, the articles he’s written on cinema and his new documentary all tell of this longing. What happened to this section of our film tradition, which in the 1970s and 80s brought forth a genre cinema that showed a very different Germany, one looking into the abyss?
Even before Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, there were reflections of neon signs in nocturnal streets and a dark angel who wanted to rescue a prostitute in Roland Klick’s Supermarkt (1973). Klaus Lemke and Roland Klick sit before Graf’s camera as nonchalantly as their heroes and rave about how actors who make full use of their bodies. At first, post-war Germany did not want maimed bodies sweaty with exertion, until Mario Adorf and Klaus Kinski brought back the need for the physical. Suddenly, there was space for violent, bloody and dirty stories, with the RAF’s first department store bomb reverberating through films such as Blutiger Freitag (1972). This is another way of telling German history. [Berlinale.de]Read More »