Film Festival
German Feature Films
The India International Centre Film Club, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi present a festival of award-winning films from Germany.
Monday, 20 – Thursday, 30 May 2019, 18:30 (see schedule below)
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Monday, 20 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Christian Petzold (Germany, 2000, colour, 106 min.)
Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists who have been sought by police for almost fifteen years. Their increasingly rebellious daughter Jeanne begins to pose a threat to their security when she falls in love with a boy she meets on the beach.
For 15 years now, the parents have been leading an underground existence, hiding among the anonymous tourists on the beaches of Portugal. They have broken a taboo: they have conceived a daughter. A girl who has never swapped clothes with her friends, never skipped classes in school, camped out at lakes, got drunk and broken off with her boyfriend in ice-cream parlours. A girl who is alone.
The parents are just about to establish some sort of legal identity for themselves in Brazil, when a slight negligence causes everything to fall apart around them. And again they are on the run, which brings them back to Germany. Meanwhile, their daughter has fallen in love. A love which will lead to a tragedy and destroy the family.
Wednesday, 22 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Maren Ade (Germany, 2019, colour, 124 min.)
This film tells the story of Gitti and Chris, a couple on a holiday of secluded togetherness. It is an intimate portrait of two people as they can only be when alone. A seemingly unimportant event – an encounter with another couple – serves to destabilise their relationship.
Not only is the other couple more successful, the two also manage to conceal conventional gender roles beneath a modern façade. Taking a leaf out of the other couple′s book, Chris begins to show his wilful girlfriend who′s boss, with the result that Gitti′s faith in her partner takes a hard knock. She attempts to conform to his new ideal, but what begins as a playful experiment with a new role soon turns into a quiet struggle with her own personality. Although Chris begins to flourish in his role as the stronger of the two, and Gitti begins to loosen up in a completely new way, they are both in danger of losing themselves.
A subtly humorous, cruelly meticulous study of the contradictory desires of a couple searching for their own identity. An intimate love story that plunges into the depths of a relationship and reflects the emotional disorientation of an entire generation. Maren Ade: "I wanted to make a film about the convoluted yet unique entity that is represented by two people in a relationship. The main character of the film is not so much an individual as a couple."
Friday, 24 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Michaela Kezele (Germany, 2011/2012, colour, 91 min.)
A moving love story in a time of hatred: During the civil war in Kosovo, the young Serbian widow Danica falls in love with Ramiz, a Kosovo-Albanian soldier who, wounded in battle, seeks refuge in her home on the Serbian side of the River Ibar.
Kosovo, 1999. As the civil war between Serbs and Albanians rages, hatred has replaced tolerance, and towns are brutally divided along ethnic lines. Danica, a young Serbian widow, lives with her two sons Vlado and Danilo in a predominantly Serbian community close to a small town which the River Ibar divides into an Albanian and a Serbian section.
The death of Danica's husband at the hands of the Albanians has left profound traces on the family. In spite of the war, everyone in the community strives to lead normal lives. But one day, Danica returns from town to find a seriously injured Kosovo-Albanian soldier, Ramiz, in her house. Though aware that he is on the run from the Serbian militia, Danica takes Ramiz in and nurses him back to health, thus exposing herself and the children to danger.
The love slowly blossoming between Danica and Ramiz comes to an abrupt end when Ramiz has to flee to the Albanian side.
Monday, 27 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Bora Dagtekin (Germany, 2013, colour, 118 min.)
Zeki Müller is a petty criminal down on his luck: his last coup yielded nothing but a prison sentence. Having just been released from custody he is eager to retrieve his lost loot. Destiny, however, has prepared otherwise and by a chain of unforeseen events Zeki ends up as an assistant teacher at a high school. His robust work methods irritate his colleagues, but turn out to be astoundingly efficient in handling the students in his challenging class. The new teacher's unconventional ways also draw the attention of pretty referendary Lisi. Being blessed with both professional and private success, Zeki starts to wonder whether he ever wants to return to his criminal career at all.
Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Dominik Graf (Germany/Austria, 2012/2014, colour, 139 min.)
Beloved Sisters is a tonally odd melodrama, mostly played out in the lavish drawing rooms of Germany's Ancien Régime, about the love two sisters have for the same man. The beloved sisters of the title are Caroline and Charlotte von Lengefeld, the real life lovers of classical German writer Friedrich Schiller, who was close friends with Goethe. Both sisters fall for the shabby poet as he spends the summer at their family home. But Caroline is already unhappily married, and Charlotte's mother wishes for a more financially prosperous suitor for her youngest daughter.
As passions develop, so do rivalries and jealousies and the sisters' relationship sours to the backdrop of the beginning of the bloody French revolution, which is muttered about in muted, horrified tones by the German elite, understandably worried that the rabble-rousing, decapitating mob terrorising France might move across the border.
Director Dominik Graf handles the material in an interesting and refreshing fashion.
Thursday, 30 May 2019, 18:30
Directed by Sebastian Schipper (Germany, 2014/2015, colour, 140 min.)
Victoria, a young Spanish woman, dances through the Berlin scene with abandon. She meets four mates outside a club who introduce themselves as Sonne, Boxer, Blinker and Fuß. They quickly get chatting. Sonne and Victoria take a fancy to each other and slip away from the group at the first opportunity. But their tender flirting is rudely interrupted by the others because, for these pals, the night is far from over. To settle an old debt they have to pull off a dodgy deal. And because one of them is too drunk, they decide that Victoria, of all people, should take over the role of driver. What began as a game suddenly becomes deadly serious.
Working from his own script, actor and director Sebastian Schipper tells the story of a breathless night on the streets of the metropolis. The camera seamlessly intertwines the passing of time and numerous locations, placing the audience right in the centre of the action. Alongside the audacious gang, we gaze out across the city from tower block roofs, saunter along deserted pavements and hide out in secluded courtyards as apparently random events coalesce into a dramatic tour de force.
Details
India International Centre (IIC), 40, Max Mueller Marg
110003 New Delhi
Language: German with English subtitles
C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium