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6:00 PM
Confessions of Thomas Mann, Confidence Man
Film screening|Achtung Film!
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Cinémathèque québécoise, Montréal
- Language Original version with English subtitles
- Price 13 $
- Part of series: Achtung Film! , 150 years of Thomas Mann
Germany | 2024 | 95 min.
Director: André Schäfer
Documentary film with fictional elements
With: Sebastian Schneider and Nils Rovira-Muñoz
150 years of Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann wrote his first draft for a novel about an impostor as early as 1905. However, the first volume of The Confessions of Felix Krull was not published until 1954. No literary figure has accompanied Thomas Mann for as long as Felix Krull. Both Krull and Thomas Mann are masters of deception. Thomas Mann was a literary superstar with an upper-class façade. His world fame meant everything to him - but it cost him enormous energy to maintain this appearance.
120 years after this first draft, the literary world is celebrating a very special anniversary: the 150th birthday of the famous German writer and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann. His literary work is one of the most important testimonies to Europe's cultural heritage, and his works are still highly relevant today. However, Thomas Mann's diaries reveal an insecure, often depressive man who suppressed his desires throughout his life: Thomas Mann was homosexual. Nevertheless, he chose a heteronormative life of marriage with six children.
The hybrid documentary links the creation of the novel with the life story of Thomas Mann. The film illuminates the parallels between the charming swindler Felix Krull and his creator, who himself struggled with the contradictions of his life. With a mixture of film documents, play scenes and passages from diaries and novels - read by Thomas Mann himself - the film explores the author's dual world and the personal significance of the “homosexual underground” (Erika Mann) of his work. Between Lübeck, Lisbon and Hollywood, the story of Mann's escape from National Socialism and his return to Europe unfolds.
150 years of Thomas Mann
Want to stay a while longer in the Thomas Mann universe after watching the film?
Why not read Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice), then join us at Goethe-Institut Montreal (1626 boul. St-Laurent, Montreal H2X 2T1) for a book club (in German) on October 30th at 6:30 PM. Register here.
Location
335 boul. de Maisonneuve Est
Montréal H2X 1K1
Kanada
