The Summer Issue

S01_CoverGFQ3_2015_Proof_Layout 1 23.07.15 11:36 Seite 1 GFQ THE SUMMER ISSUE DIRECTORS Susann Maria Hempel, Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller PRODUCERS Port-au-Prince Film & Kultur Produktion ACTOR Frederick Lau GERMAN FILMS QUARTERLY 3-2015 S02_Contents_U2_GFQ_3_2015_Layout 1 23.07.15 11:37 Seite 1 CONTENTS GFQ 3-2015 17 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 30 32 32 33 S03_CONTENTS_GFQ3_2015_Seite3_Layout 1 23.07.15 11:39 Seite 1 GFQ 3-2015 CONTENTS IN T H I S I S S U E SPOTLIGHT ON NEW SHORTS THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IN THE JUNGLE OF THE PROVINCES ALLES WIRD GUT A portrait of short film director Susann Maria Hempel .................. 4 EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY Patrick Vollrath ................................ 32 ENJOY THE SILENCE MIR FEHLT NICHTS The films of Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller ....................... 6 I DON’T MISS ANYTHING Petra Lottje ............................................ 32 NEVER ACCEPT THE HORIZON SYMBOLIC THREATS A portrait of Port-au-Prince Film & Kultur Produktion ................... 8 Mischa Leinkauf, Lutz Henke, Matthias Wermke ........................... 33 A MARLON BRANDO FROM BERLIN-STEGLITZ A portrait of actor Frederick Lau ..................................................... 10 UPCOMING FILMS 24 WOCHEN Anne Zohra Berrached ............................................... 34 NEWS & NOTES ................................................................................ 12 DIE EINSIEDLER Ronny Trocker ...................................................... 34 NEW FEATURES FUCKING BERLIN Florian Gottschick ............................................. 34 BLACK WEDDING FÜNF FRAUEN Olaf Kraemer .......................................................... 35 Tom Bohn ......................................................................................... 17 GEBURT Jessica Krummacher ........................................................ 35 FONOTUNE – AN ELECTRIC FAIRYTALE Fabian Huebner ................................................................................ 18 DER GEILSTE TAG Florian David Fitz .............................................. 35 FREISTATT GRÜSSE AUS FUKUSHIMA Doris Dörrie ........................................ 36 SANCTUARY Marc Brummund ........................................................ 19 DIE HABENICHTSE Florian Hoffmeister ......................................... 36 HEIL Dietrich Brüggemann ...................................................................... 20 MANN IM SPAGAT Timo Jacobs ...................................................... 36 HERBERT MARIE CURIE Marie Noëlle ............................................................. 37 A HEAVY HEART Thomas Stuber ..................................................... 21 NEBEL IM AUGUST Kai Wessel ...................................................... 37 HIGHWAY TO HELLAS Aron Lehmann ................................................................................. 22 RICO, OSKAR UND DER DIEBSTAHLSTEIN Neele Leana Vollmar ...................................................................... 37 HÖRDUR – ZWISCHEN DEN WELTEN HÖRDUR – BETWEEN THE WORLDS Ekrem Ergün ....................... 23 SALT AND FIRE Werner Herzog ...................................................... 38 DER NACHTMAHR DER TRAUMHAFTE WEG Angela Schanelec .................................. 38 Achim Bornhak (AKIZ) ...................................................................... 24 DIE VAMPIRSCHWESTERN 3 Tim Trachte ..................................... 38 OREGON PINE Nicolai Max Hahn ............................................................................. 25 Shareholders & Supporters ............................................................ 41 DER STAAT GEGEN FRITZ BAUER THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER Lars Kraume ............................... 26 Film Exporters ................................................................................. 42 THE TRAPP FAMILY – A LIFE OF MUSIC Imprint .............................................................................................. 43 Ben Verbong ..................................................................................... 27 VERFEHLUNG THE CULPABLE Gerd Schneider ..................................................... 28 VOLL PAULA! FULL PAULA! Malte Wirtz ................................................................ 29 WIR MONSTER WE MONSTERS Sebastian Ko .......................................................... 30 3 S04-05_PORTRAIT DIRECTOR SUSANN MARIA HEMPEL_Layout 1 20.07.15 12:48 Seite 1 SPOTLIGHT ON DIRECTOR SUSANN MARIA HEMPEL GFQ 3-2015 A PORTRAIT OF SHORT FILM DIRECTOR SUSANN MARIA HEMPEL THE WHOLE © Samuel Henne photo WIDE WORLD IN THE JUNGLE OF THE PROVINCES 4 S04-05_PORTRAIT DIRECTOR SUSANN MARIA HEMPEL_Layout 1 20.07.15 12:48 Seite 2 GFQ 3-2015 SPOTLIGHT ON DIRECTOR SUSANN MARIA HEMPEL SEVEN TIMES A DAY WE BEMOAN graduation film entitled THE MAN WHO DID OUR LOT AND AT NIGHT WE GET UP NOT WANT TO CRY, presented in 2009, is a TO AVOID DREAMING – a short piece Kafkaeske parable about social pressure to Swith a long title, which caused a conform. Its choreographic style already national and an international sensation in points towards THE WORLD IN STILLNESS 2014. CLOUDED but is still bound to a traditional fable structure. Quite the contrary must be No other German short film has manag ed to said of THE BIRDS II dating from 2010: setting gather more prizes over the past year. Among the piece to a soundtrack of electronic music others, it won the major awards in the by pioneer Oskar Sala – who also comes from German competitions at festivals in Dresden, Greiz – and using a high-speed camera Hamburg, Osnabrück and Ober hausen, went develop ed for scientific purposes, Hempel on to triumph at the Com pétition Labo in conceived a video-triptych in which the Clermont-Ferrand, and finally received the insects of the title are the graceful pro - prize as Best Experimental Film at the tagonists. An ironic miniature setting is German Short Film Awards 2014. This series employed to create a surprising correlation of successes was surprising for several between their activities and the human – the reasons. For one thing, here a young film - all too human. maker suddenly appeared on the scene, who had been seen very little before in the tightly THE BIG ROT (2012) recounts the disappear - networked field of short filmmaking. Susann ance of a highly traditional, provincial Maria Hempel did not study at one of the theater. This experimental documentary film major film academies, and her previous concentrates very seriously on irreversible Scenes from SEVEN TIMES A DAY WE BEMOAN OUR LOT works had not been shown at festivals or even cultural-historical losses. Any sentimentality AND AT NIGHT WE GET UP TO AVOID DREAMING noticed very much. is cancelled out by the work’s visual- analytical design. Then THE WORLD IN In her multiple-prize-winn ing film she also STILLNESS CLOUDED: various people busy The many awards of the past year have crea- deals with an obviously dark subject, wrapped with ritualized actions inside impenetrably ted an ambivalent situation for Susann Maria in a highly experimental form. Her “story of inter connected interiors. Doors open and Hempel. On the one hand, they mean she can the passion of an EU-pensioner from Eastern close against all logic, perspectives are keep her independence; on the other hand, of Thuringia” is based on taped protocols recor- penetrated layer by layer, leading the viewer’s course, she must bear the growing pressures ded in a small town in East Germany over the gaze astray repeatedly. A paralyzed society of expectation. It is hugely important for her course of several years. (In this context, EU has become entrenched in this hermetic to take the opportunity presented, deciding does not refer to the “European Union” but to scenario. It operates using practiced without haste what genre, technique and “Erwerbsunfähigkeit” – incapacity to work.) gestures, its home situated in the settings of film-length are best suited to her next project. a supposedly better age, conjuring up a Her small œuvre to date already constitutes The texts, newly recorded by Hempel herself, solidarity that probably never existed at all. a huge enrichment of the German film world. unfold as a sequence of minor handicaps and major tragedies, circling around illness, Overall, Susann Maria Hempel’s short films Dr. Claus Löser loneli ness, imprisonment, and abuse. The are characterized by their stylistic diversity – distinction between victims and perpetrators nevertheless, they reveal a powerful indi - blurs increasingly. In a cabinet of horrors and vidual signature. In this context, again it is marvels – an “exploding doll’s house” (jury striking that the artist cannot be assigned to statement, Oberhausen) – she conjures these any school or group. She is a loner. Perhaps traumas, finding for them images, words and her most discernible intellectual affinity is to sounds that will continue to haunt the viewer the great animation filmmakers of Eastern long afterwards, showing a great deal but ex- Europe (like Jan Švankmajer, Zbigniew plaining nothing. Rybczyński or Walerian Borowczyk), who were capable – in the middle of the Cold War – of The filmmaker’s success did not suddenly creating their own artificial universes and come from nowhere, of course. Several no setting them up in opposition to the misery of less innovative works preceded her success- Socialist Realism. ful film, consistently preparing an individual creative signature. Born in Greiz in southern The fact

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