Westwind

“Thalheim achieves something that rarely succeeds: for a brief moment, he also gives older viewers the feeling of being young again.” (Cinema)

East Coast Premiere

Germany, 2011, color, 90 mins., German with English subtitles
Director: Robert Thalheim Screenplay: Ilja Haller, Susann Schimk Producers: Susann Schimk, Jörg Trentmann, Judit Stalter, Gabor Rajna  Cast: Friederike Becht, Luise Heyer, Franz Dinda, Volker Bruch Sales: Beta Cinema (Oberhaching, Germany)

Discussion with Franz Dinda follows the first screening.

In 1988, a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, inseparable 17-year-old twins Doreen and Isabel Zimmermann (Friederike Becht, Luise Heyer) travel from their East German town of Saxony to Hungary’s Lake Balaton to train for an upcoming rowing competition. When they miss a connecting bus and impetuously accept a ride from West German teen Arne (Franz Dinda) and his mates, the resulting attraction between Doreen and Arne threatens the girls’ family bond and competitive status.

Among the most felicitous of contemporary German filmmakers, Robert Thalheim’s typically low-key, non-sensationalist approach to the material, combined with impeccable yet unforced period production design and the inclusion of such 1980s musical memories as Depeche Mode’s Never Let Me Down Again, give the film a palpable veracity without catering to a more sentimental nostalgia for the era.—Eddie Cockrell

Robert Thalheim (b: 1974, Berlin, Germany) has studied at numerous universities in Germany and the United States. He publishes the cultural periodical Plotzki, has written a book on Polish director Andrzej Wajda and directs his own work for the theater. His films include Netto (2005) and And Along Come Tourists (2007), the latter of which was featured in Film|Neu 2008.