Co-presented with Telescope Film

KINO! Film Salon is a monthly online club to discuss films from Germany.

How it works: Each month, we choose a German film currently available to stream on U.S. platforms, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German cinema.

At our July session, we’ll discuss the 2003 debut feature of Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann director Maren Ade, The Forest for the Trees.

Shot on handheld DV and bursting with an early 2000s aesthetic of secondhand embarrassment, the film follows idealistic young teacher Melanie as she stumbles through her new job at a Karlsruhe middle school. Failing to make friends and losing her grip on her classroom, her desperation causes her to continually put her foot in her mouth, cross others’ boundaries, and publicly unravel. 

“Remarkably,” writes KINO! Film Salon host Jim Kolmar, “Ade made The Forest for the Trees as her thesis graduation film, but the DNA of her unique style is clearly apparent. It’s a brutal viewing experience but delivered with full control and Ade’s refined sense of humanity in the midst of unexpected absurdity.”

The Forest for the Trees world premiered at the 2003 Hof International Film Festival before screening at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It was nominated for Best Feature Film at the 2005 German Film Awards.

Hosted by Jim Kolmar

Jim programs for SXSW and Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival and was a founding committee member of Festival Internacional de Cine Tulum (FICTU). He has participated in numerous international festival juries, panels, and committees.

KINO! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film, in partnership with the German Film Office.

Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen
Dir. Maren Ade
Germany, 2003
81 min.
With Eva Löbau, Daniela Holz, Jan Neumann