GOETHE FILMS: The End of Truth
Presented by the Goethe-Institut with the Toronto Silent Film Festival
Series introduced by Ron Deibert, Citizen Lab
From Fritz Lang’s genre-defining silent "Spies" to the Cold War and 21st century terror plots, East and West Germany have been at the centre of international espionage stories for a century. Our perception of good & evil in global conflicts might shift, but questions of identity, beliefs, loyalty, collusion & (self-)betrayal remain. Have we reached “the end of truth” as Leinemann’s recent German film title in our series suggests?
SPIES ("Spione", Germany 1928, 178 min.) directed by Fritz Lang, screenplay by Thea von Harbou ("M", "Metropolis"), piano score by Neil Brand, starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge ("Dr. Mabuse"), Gerda Maurus ("Woman in the Moon"), Willy Fritsch ("The Three from the Filling Station"), Hertha von Walther ("M"), Paul Hörbiger ("Liebelei")
Digitally restored to its original length!
“Erotic, mysterious, abstract, full of uncanny images and ideas, and rich with multiple identities and intrigue, this is essential viewing for anyone interested in the great director's work.” – Chicago Reader
“The tone is somewhere between true pulp fiction and pure expressionism, and the result remains wholly thrilling.” – Time Out
Fritz Lang put the spy film genre on the map with this fast-paced and grim thriller. Rudolf Klein-Rogge stars as Haghi, the head of an elaborate criminal empire, and Willy Fritsch is the undercover agent assigned to topple the diabolical king from his throne. Filled with the sexual intrigue and high-tech gadgetry that continue to define the genre, "Spies" remains remarkably contemporary, nearly a century after its original release.
Ron Deibert is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory focusing on research, development, and high-level strategic policy and legal engagement at the intersection of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security. He was a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative (2003-2014) and Information Warfare Monitor (2003-2012) projects. Deibert was one of the founders and (former) VP of global policy and outreach for Psiphon, one of the world’s leading digital censorship circumvention services.
Deibert has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on issues related technology, media, and world politics. He was one of the authors of the landmark Tracking Ghostnet (2009) and the Shadows in the Cloud (2010) reports, which documented two separate major global cyber espionage networks, and the Great Cannon report, which documented a new offensive “cyber weapon” co-located with China’s Great Firewall.
Deibert has served on the advisory boards of Access Now, Privacy International, and is currently on the advisory boards of PEN Canada and the Design4Democracy Coalition, the technical advisory groups of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy.
Deibert was named among Esquire Magazine’s “Best and Brightest List” of 2007, among SC Magazine’s 2010 top “IT Security Luminaries”, and in 2017 named one of the top “Humans of the Year” by VICE. Foreign Policy magazine named Deibert to its 2017 “Global (Re)Thinkers” list.
In 2013, he was appointed to the Order of Ontario and awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal, for being “among the first to recognize and take measures to mitigate growing threats to communications rights, openness and security worldwide.”
Part of the Goethe-Institut's focus on German film.
Related Events:
FOR EYES ONLY by János Veiczi
BLAME GAME by Philipp Leinemann
Back
