SCREENINGS IN FEBRUARY
60 GERMAN FILMABENDE 1960-2020
In 2020, Goethe-Institut Chennai celebrates its 60th Anniversary and to commemorate this occasion, Helmut Schippert, Director of Goethe-Institut Chennai has curated a series of 60 German films from 1960 - 2020 that have particularly appealed to him and that have an important relevance to the History of German Films. These 60 Films will be featured as 60 GERMAN FILMABENDS 1960-2020 for Chennai film buffs.
Films by renowned Directors such as Frank Beyer, Konrad Wolf, Alexander Kluge, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders and many others will be featured and the screenings are scheduled almost every Friday and on certain Saturdays throughout the year in 2020.
7.2.2020 | 7.00 pm | Goethe-Institut Auditorium
When You are Older, Dear Adam
Director: Egon Günther | 74 min. | 1966
Nine-year-old Adam lives alone with his father while his mother studies out of town. He is a clever boy with an active imagination. One day, a grateful swan gives him a magic flashlight. When its rays shine on someone who is lying, the person floats up into the air! Adam and his father decide to produce more of these flashlights, but no one is interested in buying them, least of all the politicians.
14.2.2020 | 7.00 pm | Goethe-Institut Auditorium
Yesterday Girl
Director: Alexander Kluge | 86 min. | 1966
Born in 1937 to Jewish parents, Anita G. leaves the GDR for West Germany in search of a better life. With no home or job, she is caught stealing and sent to prison. After her release, her probation officer tries to help her, but she has trouble adjusting to life in a new society and becomes a drifter. When she falls in love with a married civil servant, she finally begins to feel a sense of security, until a woman she betrayed recognizes her.
28.2.2020 | 7.00 pm | Goethe-Institut Auditorium
SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE FINAL DAYS
Director: Marc Rothemund | 116 min. | 2005
Spring 1943. The Germans have lost the battle for Stalingrad and, in Munich, members of the White Rose infiltrate the city with a wave upon wave of anti-Hitler activities and slogans. Sophie and Hans Scholl are busy distributing flyers in the main hall of Munich University when they are observed and arrested.
From this point on, the film adopts Sophie’s perspective to tell the story of the interrogations that followed their arrest, as well as the brother and sister’s trial and pronouncement of their sentence.
At first, Sophie feigns innocence, fighting tooth and nail to secure her and her brother’s release. However, sensing that the death penalty awaits them, she then does her best to protect her brother and the other resistance fighters. Gestapo man Mohr begins to admire Sophie and indicates that he will help her if she admits to being a fellow-traveller. But Sophie refuses to give up her conviction, instead confronting Mohr with his own unthinking perception of what is right and just.
Roland Freisler, chief of the Nazis’ "People’s Court", is sent from Berlin to Munich to conduct a show trial against the students – in spite of the fact that the death penalty has already been decided from the outset. At a hearing that makes a mockery of all the rules of jurisprudence, Sophie and her brother are sentenced to the death penalty. During the trial, Sophie battles so brilliantly against Freisler (who is positively snorting with rage) that her steadfast behaviour even wins her the approval of the male Nazi spectators at court.
As soon as the trial is over, the brother and sister are taken away to Stadelheim to be executed. They are allowed to say goodbye to their parents before sharing their final cigarette. History has of course shown that Sophie Scholl was right in her last, defiant prediction to Freisler: "You’re hanging us today but, tomorrow, it’ll be your heads that will roll!"
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