German

“For heaven’s sake, what a question!” exclaims the mother as her son begins the conversation; they had avoided one another for decades.
The film traces a reencounter between the director and his aged parents. It is an attempt at a personal revision of the past. In the process, a new view of his parents emerges, which also provides again and again insight into a bygone era. The story of their marriage, however, borders on a classic drama, leaving us feeling forlorn and miserable even today.Read More »

In the port town of Hamburg, Germany, Floyd decides that he’s shipping out to South Africa and Singapore now that his two-year probation for an unspecified juvenile offense has been completed. When he shares the news with his devoted friends Chubby, a mechanic, and Ricco, a fast-food cook and would-be b-boy, they can’t comprehend their thoughtful friend’s willingness to trade camaraderie for a wider view of the world. Overcoming their anger and bewilderment, the guys decide to spend one last night with Floyd, but the problem, as always, is how to find some fun. A succession of fast-food restaurants, parking garages, and local watering holes chronicles the inherent boredom of life in the provinces. But a run-in with a convention of dragster-racing Elvis impersonators sends the boys and their friend Telsa Julia Hummer on a series of adventures that veers from the farcical to the almost-tragic.Read More »

Swiss Film Prize: Best Documentary 2001

The odyssey of the fortune teller Daniele von Arb, who as a 16-year-old entered the revolutionary underground with his friends and made headlines as a top Swiss terrorist.

Daniele von Arb was 16 years old in 1970 when he and some friends of the same age from the Altstetten district of Zurich founded a revolutionary cell to rid the world of injustice. Shortly thereafter, the cell was listed by the CIA, the U.S. secret service agency, under the code name «Annebäbi» in chart on international terrorism.Read More »

Rhythmic pumping, reminiscent of steamboat pistons, accompanies the huge mechanical glass doors as they swing open and shut to accommodate a steady stream of people. Welcome to the machine! – the words beat the same rhythm in my head. And indeed, the world we have just been invited to enter does in fact resemble a futurist machine. It is a colossus of concrete and glass, with a heart deep inside, a computer heart pulsating with an endless stream of data, while hundreds of beings in its labyrinthine veins are busy or trying to keep the coursing data under control, the effort – invoking a curious language: cis, Cas, keeping and – in ocs, Tkna… (from press sheet)Read More »

Synopsis:
Berlin, the German capital again, a few years after the fall of the Wall. The city in upheaval is also changing the lives of its inhabitants. A young photographer experiences these changes as a rupture, he looks into an unclear, unsettling future and increasingly feels like a stranger in his old city. He and his friends from the generation of the children of the Wall try to find a new identity without losing the old one. Young artists who fail the profitability test of the market economy. In his search, Robert Paris ends up far away, in India. Back in Berlin, he starts developing photos again – the first in years…Read More »

Valie Export’s daring film about relationships, “Menschenfrauen” (loosely translated, “humanwomen”), focuses on Franz S., a journalist, and his relationship with four women: the kindergarten nurse Petra, he teacher Gertrude, barmaid Elisabeth and his wife Anna.

Franz “doles out honorary pieces of himself to the ‘human women’ in his seraglio, whispers the same assurances. Eventually, everyone catches on and makes some effort toward independence” (East Village Eye). “A landmark film…Valie Export achieves in ‘Menschenfrauen’ what Godard strove for but failed in his ‘Every Man for Himself’–a human view of a woman’s place in a man’s world…From credits to close, ‘Menschenfrauen’ eludes conventional cinematic vision” (Seattle Film Festival).Read More »

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A resilient icon, Hildegard Knef’s journey spans triumphs and setbacks across six decades. This film showcases her unwavering spirit and artistic brilliance through rare archival footage, celebrating a truly extraordinary woman’s …Read More »

Quote:
Shot two years before the military junta began to rule the country, “Von Griechenland” reflects upon the instability, which has characterized Greek government in the 20th century, culminating in the victory and eventual dismissal of liberal politician Georgios Papandreou. The resulting chaos and demand for new elections brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets, which further destabilized the Greek government.Read More »

Vienna, 1995. Jasmin, Tamara, Valentin, Senad and Roman live near the northern border of Austria. Their lives repeatedly intersect and drift apart. The characters involved are young migrants from the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and Austria itself. Strangers in a strange land, they feel a sense of loss in their new, temporary environment. The five-some meet and get close to each other, hopelessly clinging to friendships and relationships with no future. They frequent cafés and train stations dreaming of a better tomorrow. Often, they just fall back on the prospect of short-term affection in yet another doomed romantic or sexual encounter. Trying hard to suppress the memories of war and alienation, they try to find moral strength and warmth through one another.Read More »