Quarterly 2 · 2010
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German Films Quarterly 2 · 2010 IN CANNES: UN CERTAIN REGARD THE CITY BELOW by Christoph Hochhaeusler LIFE, ABOVE ALL by Oliver Schmitz PORTRAITS Directors Brigitte Bertele & Robert Thalheim, Collina Film Production, Actor Volker Bruch In Competition MY JOY by Sergei Loznitsa German Producer: ma.ja.de fiction/Leipzig World Sales: Fortissimo Film Sales/Amsterdam In Competition LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER by Bertrand Tavernier German Producer: Pandora Film/Cologne World Sales: StudioCanal/Paris In Competition TENDER SON – THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT by Kornél Mundruczó German Producer: Essential Filmproduktion/Berlin World Sales: Coproduction Office/Paris In Competition TOURNÉE by Mathieu Amalric German Producer: Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion/Leipzig World Sales: Le Pacte/Paris In Competition UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES by Apichatpong Weerasethakul German Producers: Geissendoerfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion & The Match Factory/Cologne World Sales: The Match Factory/Cologne Out of Competition THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUSESCU by Andrei Ujicaˇ German Producer: Neue Mira Filmproduktion/Bremen World Sales: Mandragora International/Paris Out of Competition CARLOS THE JACKAL by Olivier Assayas German Producer: Egoli Tossell Film/Halle World Sales: StudioCanal/Paris Un Certain Regard AURORA by Cristi Puiu German Producer: Essential Filmproduktion/Berlin World Sales: Coproduction Office/Paris GERMAN FILMS AND CO-PRODUCTIONS 2010 FILM FESTIVAL THE CANNES AT Un Certain Regard THE CITY BELOW by Christoph Hochhaeusler Producer: Heimatfilm/Cologne World Sales: The Match Factory/Cologne Un Certain Regard LIFE, ABOVE ALL by Oliver Schmitz German Producer: Dreamer Joint Venture Filmproduktion/Berlin World Sales: Bavaria Film International/Geiselgasteig Cannes Classics THE TIN DRUM by Volker Schloendorff German Producers: Seitz Filmproduktion/Munich, Bioskop Film/Munich, Artemis Film/Berlin, Hallelujah Film/Potsdam, GGB/Munich World Sales: Argos Film/Neuilly-sur-Seine Séance Speciale NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ by Patricio Guzmán German Producer: Blinker Filmproduktion/Cologne World Sales: Pyramide International/Paris Directors’ Fortnight THE LIGHT THIEF by Aktan Arym Kubat German Producer: Pallas Film/Halle World Sales: The Match Factory/Cologne Directors’ Fortnight PICCO by Philip Koch Producer: Walker+Worm Film/Munich World Sales: Rezo Films International/Paris Directors’ Fortnight LE QUATTRO VOLTE by Michelangelo Frammartino German Producer: Essential Filmproduktion/Berlin World Sales: Coproduction Office/Paris All photos courtesy of producers and world sales agents. Credits not contractual. not contractual. agents. Credits sales and world of producers All photos courtesy Critics’ Week BI, DON’T BE AFRAID Atelier by Srdan Golubovic by Phan Dang Di CIRCLES German Producer: Neue Mediopolis German Producer: TR9 Film/Leipzig Filmproduktion/Leipzig German Films Quarterly 2 · 2010 director portraits 6 THE ANTHROPOLOGIST A portrait of Brigitte Bertele 8 POLITICAL, WITTY, HUMAN A portrait of Robert Thalheim producer portrait 10 EXPLORING NEW AREAS A portrait of collina Filmproduktion actor portrait 12 THE UNPREDICTABLE A portrait of Volker Bruch 14 news in production 20 BASTARD Carsten Unger 21 DAS BLAUE VOM HIMMEL Hans Steinbichler 21 DR. KETEL Linus de Paoli 22 DSCHUNGELKIND Roland Suso Richter 23 FINE ART GAMES Anton Gonopolski 24 HIDDEN Agnieszka Holland 25 HOMIES Adnan G. Koese 26 JOHNNY KUEHLKISSEN Andi Rogenhagen 26 KLANG DER STILLE Friederike Jehn 27 KNOTENPUNKT Kanwal Sethi 28 LENAS LIEBE Didi Danquart 29 PINA Wim Wenders 30 PLAYOFF Eran Riklis 31 WINTERVATER Johannes Schmid 32 ZIMMER 205 Rainer Matsutani new german films 34 DIE 4. REVOLUTION – ENERGY AUTONOMY THE 4TH REVOLUTION – ENERGY AUTONOMY Carl-A. Fechner 35 ANSICHTSSACHE 2 A MATTER OF OPINION 2 Matej Bobrik, Igor Chojna, Piotr Litwin, Justyna Tafel, Bartosz Warwas, Mark Wegner 36 BARRIERE BOUNDARIES Andreas Kleinert 37 BLACK DEATH Christopher Smith 38 BOXHAGENER PLATZ BERLIN, BOXHAGENER PLATZ Matti Geschonneck 39 DETROIT – ZWISCHEN UTOPIE UND UNTERGANG DETROIT – BETWEEN UTOPIA AND PERDITION Roland May 40 EFECTO DOMINÓ DOMINO EFFECT Gabriel Gauchet 41 FRITZ BAUER – TOD AUF RATEN FRITZ BAUER – DEATH BY INSTALMENTS Ilona Ziok 42 GOOD MORNING AFRICA! Chiara Sambuchi 43 HABERMANN Juraj Herz 44 JANE’S JOURNEY Lorenz Knauer 45 KETCHUP IN TUVA – A TRANSSIBERIAN TREASURE HUNT Eike Schmitz 46 DIE KINDER VOM FRIEDRICHSHOF THE CHILDREN OF THE COMMUNE Juliane Grossheim 47 KONFERENZ DER TIERE ANIMALS UNITED Reinhard Klooss, Holger Tappe 48 KRIEGERSTOCK Joseph Lippok 49 EIN LAPTOP GEGEN DIE ARMUT A LAPTOP AGAINST POVERTY Chiara Sambuchi 50 LEVEL 3D Marcus Morlinghaus 51 LIFE, ABOVE ALL Oliver Schmitz 52 LOVE & THEFT Andreas Hykade 53 METROPOLIS Fritz Lang 54 OLIVIERO TOSCANI – BILDERWUT OLIVIERO TOSCANI – THE RAGE OF IMAGES Peter Scharf, Katja Duregger 55 PHILIPP Fabian Moehrke 56 RHEINGOLD Andreas Pieper 57 ROAD TO RAINBOW Mo Asumang 58 ROCK IT! Mike Marzuk 59 SEAN SCULLY: ART COMES FROM NEED Hans Andreas Guttner 60 SOLTAU Peter Huemmeler 61 SUICIDE CLUB Olaf Saumer 62 TIGER-TEAM Peter Gersina 63 UNBELEHRBAR UNTEACHABLE Anke Hentschel 64 UNTER DIR DIE STADT THE CITY BELOW Christoph Hochhaeusler 65 UNTER STROM LIVE WIRE – A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT KIDNAPPER Zoltan Paul 66 ZEITEN AENDERN DICH ELECTRO GHETTO Uli Edel 69 film exporters 71 foreign representatives · imprint DIRECTOR PORTRAIT Brigitte Maria Bertele was born in Ulm in 1974; today she lives in Berlin. After graduating from school, she began training in 1993 as an actress at the Academy of Performing Arts in Ulm and the GITIS in Moscow and performed in more than 30 stage productions during the following years, also acting in cinema and TV films. In 2004 she made the short documentary film Horizon Zone about under-age refugees, which was premiered at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival in 2005. A Glimpse Squiptare (2005) was followed in 2007 by the 53-minute documentary film Roaming Around, which was premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and won the German Short Film Award in Gold in 2008. The film is about children in the slums of the city Accra in Ghana. It won several more prizes at home and abroad and was shown at more than a dozen festivals. A Hero’s Welcome (Nacht vor Augen) was Bertele’s first feature film, made in 2008; after its pre- miere in the Forum of the Berlinale, the film was screened at more than 20 festivals and won the First Steps Award 2008 and the German Film Critics’ Award in 2009. As well as a contribution to the project 24h Berlin – Ein Tag im Leben, Bertele also made the 43- minute TV-film Mountain Gorillas – Uganda’s Gentle Giants (Berggorilla – Ugandas sanfte Riesen) in 2009 for the broad casters SWR/ARTE. She is currently working on her next feature, Der Brand. Agent: Funke & Stertz GmbH Medien Agenten · Peter Stertz Schulterblatt 58 · 20357 Hamburg/Germany phone +49-40-43 21 61 0 · fax +49-40-43 21 61 20 email: [email protected] · www.funke-stertz.de Brigitte Maria Bertele (photo courtesy of Brigitte Maria Bertele) THE ANTHROPOLOGIST A portrait of Brigitte Maria Bertele Brigitte Maria Bertele and Austria seem to have a thing going. ence – at the Diagonale in Graz. She saw the films of Heddy “I like the ambivalence of it,” says the director. “Perhaps it has some- Honigman in a retro spective there, and immediately she knew: “That thing to do with me growing up in Bavaria, the cultures are quite is exactly what I want to do!” A study of Direction at the Baden- similar.” Bertele clearly has a foible for our neighbors in the south- Wuerttemberg Film Academy in Ludwigsburg followed that insight – east: much earlier, when she had not yet contemplated film direction she qualified as a documentary film director – as well as semesters but was interested in philosophy and playing with the idea of studying abroad in Tirana/Albania and at the Film College of Buenos Aires. In humanities, curiously enough her favorite was the Vienna philosopher the meantime, Bertele mainly makes feature films; her first full-length Ludwig Wittgenstein, a man of many contradictions who combined feature, A Hero’s Welcome, which premiered in the International theories of strict logic with notions of ‘language games’, who worked Forum of the Berlinale 2008, already made Bertele into one of the as an elementary school teacher rather than a university professor, hardest-head ed, most promis ing voices of her generation. and was also a talented architect who once built a house. A Hero’s Welcome came to grips with a subject that is still taboo In the end, Bertele didn’t study Philosophy after all; instead, she began in Germany and – by contrast to other countries – has been ex am - training as an actress and worked successfully for some years in the ined only rarely in German cinema to date: German soldiers who have profession, primarily on the stage. Then Austria had a renewed influ- served in war regions, and the question of what actually goes through german films quarterly director portrait 2 · 2010 6 their mind when they return after the experience of death and vio - garding the character.” One example of this is Maja Schoene, the lead - lence to the peaceful conditions of German middle-class society? ing actress of Der Brand – a discovery. Bertele shows this through the example of David, a young man who has experienced borderline situations and cannot find his way back Asked again about her role models, she mentions the name Anges into society. It is the intense drama of a homecoming soldier and a Varda – her films are always located on the threshold between au - nightmarishly staged story of emotional derangement, far from senti- thenticity and artificiality – and Carlos Reygadas. And the much-loved mental. Austrians: in the case of her latest material, Goetz Spielmann’s Revanche was especially important. And Ulrich Seidl’s films, of “I find people in borderline situations interesting,” Bertele says, “but course. “And only recently I saw Jessica Hauner’s Lourdes. That’s also the conflicts tackled in my films slumber within us all.” It is important a fascinatingly made film.” to Bertele that cinema thematizes the present day and the realities of life around us.