Cut!

German film is a programme focus for the Goethe-Institut Canada. On this page we provide you with an overview of current events, online offerings, the various film series, reviews of highlights of the programme work and other information about German film.

Current Information

Scene from the movie “Buddenbrooks”: The elaborate historical costumes were designed by Barbara Baum, who has been working as a costume designer in the film industry for about 50 years.

Film production
Women Behind the Cinematic Scenes

While the public can recite the names of famous German actresses, the women behind the camera often go unrecognised. We introduce ten women from the German film scene everyone should know.

Filming goes green: the ecological message of many films is now coming true behind the scenes.

A Sustainable Film Industry
The Show Must Go Green

Many films and documentaries explore environmental issues or call for a more sustainable lifestyle. Is the industry living up to its own values though, and just how green is German film?

Red Carpet in front of the Berlinale Palace

Berlinale 2020
Winds of change and fresh faces at Potsdamer Platz

Some big changes are coming to Germany's biggest and biggest-name film festival this year. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new at the Berlinale 2020.

Retrospect

Introductions to Shoah
Shoah

by Claude Lanzmann

France 1985, 556 min.
Original version with French subtitles.

In January 2020, the Goethe-Institut Montreal showed the film "Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann in its entire length of about 9 hours in three parts in cooperation with the Cinématèque Québécoise. Each screening was preceded by an introduction by an expert. These texts are now available.

Claude Lanzmann made his monumental documentary Shoah, on the systematic extermination of Jews in Europe by the German Reich, without using any archive material. For eleven years, the filmmaker filmed former sites of mass murder and tirelessly identified and questioned survivors, witnesses and former perpetrators. The result is a 9.5-hour film that wrote film history – and counts as one of the most important films ever made.

Film Series

GOETHE FILMS: Lose My Self – A Portrait of Sandra Hüller

Toronto
Lose my Self

A portrait of Sandra Hüller
Whether in the Cannes hit comedy “Toni Erdmann” or the exorcism drama “Requiem”, the prolific Sandra Hüller commands the screen, winning 3x best actress at the Berlinale, a European Film Award & the Toronto Film Critics Association Award.

Presented in October at the TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX Toronto

Montreal
Achtung Film!

Achtung Film!, the Goethe-Institut’s monthly film series, will be presented every month at the Cinématèque québécoise in Montreal. The focus remains contemporary German cinema in all its diversity and richness, from fiction to documentary, established to emerging filmmakers, from entertaining to challenging films.

Ottawa
Goethe-Cinema

Goethe-Cinema, the Goethe-Institut Ottawa’s monthly film series, will be presented on a Friday at the Amphitheater, Saint-Paul University in Ottawa (please see programmation for exceptions).

Quebec
Cinéma Goethe

With the Goethe-Institut’s new series in Québec City, Cinéma Goethe, cinéphiles will be able to keep abreast of contemporary German cinema in all its diversity from fiction to documentary, emerging to established filmmakers, entertaining to challenging films. Presented at Cinéma Cartier once a month on the second Wednesday of each month.