Film Screening "GRAVE DECISIONS”
by Marcus H. Rosenmüller
GOETHE FILMS: Heimat NOW
© Movienet Film
Series co-presented by the German National Tourist OfficeMountains, sea, sunshine & romance – these are a few of the favourite things in the escapist and house-proud German Heimatfilms of the 1950s, as in the “Sissi” series that brought the young Romy Schneider to fame.
60 years later the genre is back. What is the state of the nation? How do new films reflect the country’s regionalism after reunification, from North to South and East to West?
GRAVE DECISIONS (Germany, 2006, 104 min, 35mm), directed by Marcus H. Rosenmüller, with Markus Krojer, Fritz Karl, Konstantin Wecker, and others
Toronto Premiere
3 German Film Awards 2007
2 Bavarian Film Awards 2007
Munich Film Festival 2006
The tragi-comedy hit that relaunched regional German Heimatfilms.
11- year-old Sebastian lives with his father and his older brother in a Bavarian village. One day the boy finds out that his mother died when she gave birth to him. Night after night he has nightmares in which the Last Judgement comes upon him and he is sentenced to eternal purgatory!
There seems to be only one way to escape this fate: he has to become immortal. After a series of unsuccessful attempts, Sebastian realises that his only chance to achieve his goal is to become a rock star.
“Tumultous story of a scallywag in Bavarian dialect, which wittily and disrespectfully oscillates between comedy, farce, and peasant theatre, but which despite all the jokes doesn’t take it too lightly.” – Encyclopedia of International Films
“The debut brings fresh air to German film.“ – Filmstarts.de
“The central scene of the film – an imagined, highly theatrical Last Judgment, which the hero dreams up – is the triumph of cinematographic imagination, and one would love to shout ‘hurray’ because it has been quite a time since something comparable has been created.” – filmmaker Dietrich Brüggemann, Schnitt Online
Marcus H. Rosenmüller, born in Bavaria, in 1973, studied at the Munich Academy for Television and Film. Before graduating, he had already called attention to himself with his short films HOTEL DEEPA, CARAWAY AND CORN, and ONLY JOINERS MAKE WOMEN HAPPY, which were shown at various international festivals and awarded audience prizes. Rosenmüller produced multiple episodes of the documentary series "Somewhere in Bavaria" for Bavarian radio. With GRAVE DECISIONS, Rosenmüller made his feature film debut. In subsequent films, which include BEST TIMES (2006) and its sequels BESTE GEGEND (2008) and BEST CHANCE (2014), he remained faithful to his preference for stories rooted in his Bavarian homeland.
All GOETHE FILMS are open to audience 18+
Part of the Goethe-Institut’s focus on German Film