Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert

Margarethe von Trotta's film INGEBORG BACHMANN - JOURNEY INTO THE DESERT is presented as part of GERMAN CURRENTS KINO San Diego, a partnership between the Goethe-Institut, emago media, and the Digital Gym Cinema,and with the support of AMONG FRIENDS – UNTER FREUNDEN, a campaign of the Goethe-Institut USA to celebrate and strengthen transatlantic friendship.

Friday, August 21st + Sunday, August 23rd
@Digital Gym: 1100 Market st. San Diego, CA, 92101
INGEBORG BACHMANN – JOURNEY INTO THE DESERT | INGEBORG BACHMANN – REISE IN DIE WÜSTE
Switzerland / Austria / Germany / Luxembourg (2023) 110 min. German/English with English Subtitles
Writer-Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Cinematographer: Martin Gschlacht
Cast: Vicky Krieps, Ronald Zehrfeld, Tobias Resch, Basil Eidenbenz, Marc Limpach, Luna Wedler
Producers: Tatiana Merizalde Dobles, Janine Jackowski (Komplizen Film GmbH), Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade (Komplizen Film GmbH)
Produced by: tellfilm, AMOUR FOU Vienna, Heimatfilm und AMOUR FOU Luxembourgin co-production with ORF Film/Fernsehabkommen, SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen / SRG SSR, ZDF/ARTE. She is Austrian, he Swiss; she is a poet, he a playwright; she is a daredevil yet vulnerable, he is adventurous but a little conservative. When Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch meet for the first time in Paris in the summer of 1958, they are already international celebrities of the literary world. In the four years that follow, they dabble in great love and an open relationship between his hometown of Zurich and her adopted Rome. Frisch envies her fame; Bachmann finds his typewriter clatter and his jealousy annoying. She is emancipated, experiments with a liberated existence, is mobile and productive; in Berlin, she writes the famous speech: "The Truth is Bearable for Humankind". She only realises afterwards that she is suffering, and by how much – with Adolf Opel in the desert, and with Hans Werner Henze in Italy. Margarethe von Trotta interweaves the times before and after the catastrophe. Her direction is frank, sober and elegant. Ronald Zehrfeld as the corpulent, pipe-smoking Frisch and Vicky Krieps (in the role of another cult figure after Empress Sisi) are the perfect match. This film is not about Bachmann’s fatal end, but about her hopes for love and respect, in literature, and in life. Source: 73. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)

These screenings are presented at the Digital Gym as part of GERMAN CURRENTS KINO San Diego, and with the support of AMONG FRIENDS – UNTER FREUNDEN, a campaign of the Goethe-Institut USA to celebrate and strengthen transatlantic friendship.