The Latest at Goethe

A person who goes to the movies thirty times a year can surely be considered an avid cinemagoer. But, what about seeing as many films within two weeks? Our writer Patrizia Barba did it – and still cannot get enough. This is her festival report.

A NASA pilot rises 10,000 metres into the air with a helium balloon and then drops spectacularly to the earth. The first few minutes alone could hardly be topped. Then I am marvelling at a hermit on Hawaii who has been living far from civilization for over thirty years. The main question is: what is time? And I ask myself, how long do these 114 minutes feel to me during which director Peter Mettler uses extraordinary film shots to pursue this question? His film The End of Time was playing at DOK Leipzig, the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, and was my personal favourite in the international competition.

Another film on my list this week is Another Night on Earth. Without any background information, the title already sounds appealing, reminding me immediately of Jim Jarmusch’s episode film Night on Earth. In fact, the protagonists in David Muñoz’s film are also in taxis. But, the episodes in this film are real. The location is Cairo. During the night drives, the diverse passengers communicate within the smallest space, they argue, curse and laugh with one another, thus offering the audience a survey of the mood in Egypt’s capital city shortly after the Arab Spring. The taxi, as an insulated space, offers the perfect stage for non-censored communication. Following the screening, Muñoz surprises us with the statement that he filmed only using the video function of a photo camera that was visibly mounted inside the vehicles.

Over the course of the week, I watch 19 of a total of 360 films from 62 countries. I am one of 37,000 visitors in five venues, which makes it sometimes difficult finding a seat in the auditorium. A number of volunteer helpers go to great efforts though to ensure that every cinema guest can see their chosen film.



At the award ceremony at the imposing Centraltheater, the prize monies are granted at a record high of 79,000 euros. One of those to clean up with two awards is Another Night on Earth, the main prize, the Golden Dove is granted to Sweden’s Tora Mårtens for her lyrically told story about a dissimilar pair of brothers. Colombianos is the name of her film. The Goethe-Institut has its own Documentary Film Prize. The award, endowed with 2,000 euros, goes to Vergiss mein nicht (Forget Me Not) by David Sieveking. “The film is a sensitively recounted homage by the filmmaker to his mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, which is able to keep the difficult balance between personal involvement and artistic distance,” the jury explained their decision. A lovely sight on the stage: Sieveking raises his arms in the air for joy and expresses his thanks over and over. The Goethe-Institut will acquire the licenses, fund subtitling in at least five languages and show Vergiss mein nicht around the world.

The evening ends as a film festival should – the invited guests can choose between a film screening or the party in the foyer. I decide on the film, my personal favourite number 20.

Soapbox races and shots at school

Cut to another place, another audience. At the Schlingel film festival, the cinemas are mainly filled with children. The International Film Festival for Children and Young Audience SCHLINGEL in Chemnitz is being held for the 17th time. But, it is a premiere for the Goethe-Institut to also award its own prize as it does in Leipzig. The series Focus Germany is showing 15 films. A total of 103 productions from 36 countries are being screened, including films from the Czech Republic, Russia, Taiwan and, for the first time, a contribution from Qatar.

I put together yet another personal watch list. One highlight that I get to see is the German-Irish coproduction Death of a Superhero by Ian FitzGibbon, an interesting blend of real and animated film. For the film Tomorrow One Year by Aelrun Gotte I meet two film fans who came all the way from Munich. Oyunaa and her girlfriend Ulzii got tickets on Facebook for the screening. Both come originally from Mongolia, but have been living in Germany for a few years. Oyunaa learned German at the Goethe-Institut. Tomorrow One Year tells of 16-year-old Luca, who shot two people at her school. Following the film, Oyunaa is speechless for a moment. Then she says, “The film really makes you think. Especially if you have adolescent children of your own, like my friend Ulzii. Parents have to try to understand their children better.”

By contrast, Tony Simpson’s film from New Zealand Kiwi Flyer makes for lots of laughter in the cinema. The kids who got a day off school to come to the film festival joyfully follow the comical events about a soapbox race at the other end of the world. This also delights the director, who is present for the screening, and tells me “The great thing about the kids’ reactions was that they laugh at the same spots as we did in New Zealand.”

The Youth and Children's Film Prize of the Goethe-Institut includes the German-Swiss production The Foster Boy by Markus Imboden. It tells the story of the twelve-year-old orphan boy Max, who is sent to a farming family, where he must survive a life made up of hard work, hunger and violence. “The eye of the camera that captures the idyllic beauty of this landscape in calm images was particularly convincing,” according to the jury. “This makes the contrast to the routine brutality behind the wall of silence all the more shattering.”



The spectrum of the films shown impresses me in particular, and by the end of the week, in spite of such numerous screenings, like the other 12,000 visitors, I am not yet cinema-weary. At the award ceremony a number of excerpts are shown again that make you want to see the films you missed. So, I have plenty to do.