Film

The trend among filmmakers these days is to take their stories away from the big cities and set them in some of the more remote regions of Germany. It is in those places however that life is not as quiet as it might seem.

German forests are scary places. We only have to recall the tales of the Brothers Grimm – with their gingerbread houses and wicked witches. A German forest however is also the scene of the most exciting cinematic experiment of the past year – Dreileben, a trilogy by directors Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler. The way the idea for the project came about is also quite interesting – as a result of an internet discussion on the aesthetics of filmmaking the three directors decided to make three independent 90-minute films that, like three different witnesses, focus on a particular crime from three different perspectives. “More like sibling films than a classic trilogy,” is the way Hochhäusler explains how the three films relate to each other.

The title of Christian Petzold’s film Etwas besseres als den Tod is actually a quote from the fairy tale about the Bremen Town Musicians and means “something better than death”. It is a clear reference to the wealth of German fairy tales and contributes to the whole of this unfathomable thriller being swathed in a meta-shroud of German mysticism. Barbarossa, Little Red Riding Hood and a killer who is lurking in the forest like the Big Bad Wolf. This endows Dreileben with a dimension of time that goes way beyond the present. This is both exciting and unique in the realm of German filmmaking and – despite the experimental character of the film – it was financed in total by German television stations (WDR, BR, ARD Degeto)!

Elke Hauck’s film Der Preis (The Prize) is also set in the backwoods of Thuringia. After being away for 20 long years Alexander, an architect (Florian Panzner), returns to his home town to work on a prestigious project. Old wounds however start to be reopened. Wasn’t he the one who incurred a heavy burden of guilt and forced his friend to commit suicide…

Floating and oppressive – Old Masters and newcomer documentaries

Wim Wenders also managed to find locations outside the big cities for his film PINA – a tribute to the legendary choreographer Pina Bausch who died in 2009. PINA, one of the highlights at the 2011 Berlinale, takes the art of dance out of the dance halls not only into the natural beauty of the Bergisches Land hill country, but also into industrial complexes, traffic intersections and even into Wuppertal’s suspended railway. The result was a feature-length documentary that opens up new dimensions for the dance film with the help of 3-D technology.

The winner of this year’s First Steps Award – Ein Sommer voller Türen (A Summer Full of Doors, directed by Stefan Ludwig) - was also a clear indication of just how convincing newcomer documentaries are becoming. The film is an emotional and accurate depiction of the everyday routine of door-to-door salespeople.

Home Country – Immigration

One of the main subjects in German cinema is still “immigration”. It is to be found throughout the entire length and breadth of German filmmaking – be it in documentary form, drama or comedy. The audience’s favourite at the 2011 Berlinale and now a huge hit at the German box-office is Almanya made by two Turkish sisters called Samdereli. With great self-irony it tells the story of a Turkish family that has been living in Germany for three generations - perfectly observed, humorous and profound.

The same subject is approached from a completely different angle by Feo Aladag’s film Die Fremde (When We leave), which was awarded the German Film Prize in Bronze in 2010. Her film deals with the dramatic subject of “honour killings” and it is acted sensitively and powerfully by its leading actress, Sibel Kekilli (2010 German Film Prize for Best Actress in a Leading Role). A similarly cruel fate awaits the illegal immigrant in the film Der Albaner (Shqiptar/The Albanian) , the winner of this year’s Max Ophüls Prize. Director Johannes Naber got the idea for the script from a true story.

An angry look into the future – “Die kommenden Tage”

What will Germany be like in the year 2020? Gloom and doom – the repulsion of waves of immigration, the effects of environmental disasters and the ever-present threat of terrorism will be the problems society has to face.

Director Lars Kraume prophetically tells of the roots of terrorism and the decaying of society. Whereas others avail themselves of the past for this – sticking to the well known biographies of RAF terrorists or stylising the protagonists of the Baader-Meinhoff Gang into action heroes – Kraume has bravely gone where no other has gone in Germany – into the long-forgotten genre of the science-fiction film. Couched in a complex family saga Die kommenden Tage (The Coming Days) remains both touching and exciting right up to the very last minute. Daniel Brühl, Johanna Wokalek, Bernadette Heerwagen and August Diehl – the young stars of German cinema are all to be seen in bravura performances.

A poetic look into the past – “Poll”

Probably the most beautiful film from an aesthetic point of view last year was Chris Kraus’s “Poll” (The Poll Diaries) that was nominated for the German Film Prize in the categories of costumes, make-up, set design and cinematography. Based on the reminiscences of his grandmother, Kraus recounts an artistic drama with a moving love story that takes place on the Baltic coast on the eve of the First World War.

By choosing the outstanding, 14-year-old Paula Beer to play the lead the director demonstrated his particular gift for discovering new talent. Wasn’t he also the one who turned Hannah Herzsprung into a star overnight in his film Vier Minuten (Four Minutes).

“There are no turns for the worse, only for the new” – The 2011 Lola Awards

In Germany the cinematic year lasts from February to February – from one Berlinale Film Festival to the next – and in between the full, broad spectrum of German filmmaking abounds. And then, this year on 8th April, in Berlin’s Friedrichstadtpalast theatre the Lola Awards – Germany’s top film prize – will take place. Whether they will go to well known directors like Tom Tykwer or Wim Wenders or newcomers like Yasemin Samdereli remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure – anybody who does not win a prize will be able to console themselves with the heroine’s motto in The Poll Diaries - “There are no turns for the worse, only for the new”. At the moment the German film is veritably flourishing – mainly due to the broad range of German film sponsoring and to one or the other TV producer who is not afraid of supporting arthouse cinema.