Presented by the German Consulate General Toronto & the Goethe-Institut
Toronto premiere
GUNDERMANN (Germany, 2018, 128 min), directed by Andreas Dresen, written by Laila Stieler, with Alexander Scheer, Anna Unterberger, Axel Prahl, Thorsten Merten, Bjarne Madel, Milan Peschel
Followed by a panel discussion with German-Canadian journalist
Claude Adams, who was CBC’s “The National” chief European correspondent in the 1980s and covered the fall of the Berlin Wall; York U German Studies Professor
Gabriele Mueller; former Executive Editor of the Globe and Mail
Jim Sheppard, who covered the fall of the Wall for The Canadian Press; and
Nadine Jocaitis.
GUNDERMANN tells the story of a digger driver who writes songs. He is a poet, a clown, an idealist. He dreams and hopes, loves and struggles. He is a spy who gets spied on, a do-gooder who doesn’t know better. He is torn. GUNDERMANN is both a music film and a love story; a drama about guilt and entanglement, about suppression and confrontation. GUNDERMANN is a film about East Germany in the '80s. It takes a new look back at the GDR, a country that has disappeared. It’s not too late – in fact, it’s about time. In GUNDERMANN, acclaimed director Andreas Dresen looks at the life of Gerhard “Gundi” Gundermann – one of the most formative music artists of East Germany – with sensibility, affection, and humour. Gundermann died in 1998, at the age of 43. Here, he is congenially portrayed by Alexander Scheer (SUN ALLEY), who sang all the songs in the film himself.
Festivals and Awards
6 German Film Awards 2019: Best Film, Directing, Screenplay, Leading Actor, Production Design, Costume Design
Bavarian Film Prize 2019 Best Leading Actor
Tromsø International Film Festival 2019 FIPRESCI Prize
“Alexander Scheer and Andreas Dresen show in 'Gundermann' the ambivalence and humanity that is necessary to understand the dilemmas faced by people who believed in the ideals of the GDR, despite their methods.” - Filmstarts
German director
Andreas Dresen, who won awards for his films at Cannes and the Berlinale, is one of Germany’s most admired directors with diverse and award-winning features. His specific directing style is based on improvisation, which results in extraordinary acting accomplishments and a feeling of almost documentary-like realism.
Dresen was born in 1963 in Gera, East Germany. In the early ’80s, he began working in theatre and making short films. He studied directing at the HFF “Konrad Wolf ” Potsdam-Babelsberg. Since 1992, he has been working as a writer and director for film, TV, theater and opera. His previous films include SILENT COUNTRY, AS WE WERE DREAMING, CLOUD 9 and SUMMER IN BERLIN.
Part of the Goethe-Instituts focus on German Film.
Back
