TV Miniseries, Episodes 1-4
Episode 1:
Friday, November 2, 7:00pm
With an introduction by film journalist
Anne-Katrin Titze
Episodes 2-4:
Saturday, November 3, 5:00pm
Please note that each episode is 90 minutes long. There will be a short intermission between episodes during the Saturday screening.
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New York, New York, in the late 1960s. German interpreter Gesine Cresspahl, who was born in a small village in the German province of Mecklenburg, feels out of place in her adopted country. She has never gotten over the death of Jakob, her true love. The father of her now eleven-year-old daughter was run over by a train and killed. At Marie’s insistence Gesine begins to tell the story of her family, which in turn is a story of what happened in Germany. The memories stretch from Hitler’s rise to power and World War II, to the post-war period and the establishment of East Germany, and finally to the suppression of the Prague Spring in the summer of 1968.
For a long time Uwe Johnson’s complex masterwork
Anniversaries (
Jahrestage) was believed to be unfilmable. Director
Margarethe von Trotta filmed it anyway. The result is a four-part miniseries, in which von Trotta succeeds in translating the complexity and intricacy of the novel into cinematic language.
“The film adaptation of Uwe Johnson’s novel
Anniversaries is an independent, exciting work of art. Margarethe von Trotta and her team spin the violent material into a rare harmonious entity: political dimensions, private life, strong emotions, and the finest nuances of comedy and tragedy.” (epd medien, 11/2000)
Anniversaries
Germany, 2000, 360 Minutes
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. With Suzanne von Borsody, Marie Helen Dehorn, Axel Milberg, Hanns Zischler, Edgar Selge, Matthias Habich
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Anne-Katrin Titze is a film journalist and lecturer. She curates and moderates talks with filmmakers and panel discussions at Universities and cultural venues. Her recent conversations on German cinema include Margarethe von Trotta on
Searching For Ingmar Bergman; Wim Wenders on
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word; Volker Schlöndorff on his lecture
'68: A Long Time Coming; Robert Schwentke on being confrontational in
The Captain; Olaf Möller on
The Lost Years of German Cinema; Cate Blanchett and Julian Rosefeldt on
Manifesto; Charles Schumann on
Bar Talks By Schumann; Andres Veiel on the making of
Beuys; Maria Schrader on
Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, and coming up Christian Petzold's
Transit star Franz Rogowski.
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