The Audi German Film Festival 2011 kicks off in Melbourne
LOOKING for something different to do this Friday night and over the weekend? Enjoy the best films Germany has to offer without even having to leave the city. Steven Tannason and Elisa Scarton fill you in.
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The Audi German Film Festival kicks off in Melbourne today… and there’s still time to buy tickets!
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the festival will be screening the best films Deutschland has to offer from April 7 till April 18.
This year’s line-up features more than 33 classic and contemporary films and shorts, and opens at Kino Cinemas with the Australian premiere of Vincent Wants to Sea, a beautifully directed story of three lost souls on a journey of self-discovery.
Vincent Wants to Sea. Vincent suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and has been placed in an institution by his politician father, Robert Gellner. His mother has just passed away and Vincent wants to honour her wish by taking her ashes to the seaside.
Goethe! This amusing and poignant portrait of the great German poet centres on the youthful love affair that profoundly affected his life and shaped the writing of his masterpiece The Sorrows of Young Werther.
The event’s other two headlining films are the 2011 shock hit comedy Almanya about family, heritage and returning home, and Goethe!, a bright and colourful period piece about a love struck young poet.
More than 26,000 people attended last year’s festival and its director, Klaus Krischok, said filmgoers would have even more to look forward to this time around with a new addition to the film event’s repertoire.
“We’re very excited about this year’s focus on documentaries, which has been made possible through our cooperation with German television channel ZDF and Franco-German television network ARTE,” he said.
The Silence, a compelling cold–case thriller. The bicycle of young Sinnika is found in a wheat field. It is 23 years to the day since a young girl named Pia was raped and murdered at this exact location. Her killer was never found. Retired detective Krischan, who failed to solve the Pia case, is convinced the same perpetrator is responsible.
The Poll Diaries is a touching historical drama is seen through the eyes of an adolescent Oda Scheafer, the famed German writer and journalist. Her father, Ebbo, is an eccentric German doctor whose questionable interest in racial breeding has made him an outcast in the scientific community. As Europe teeters on the brink of war and Russian forces crack down on Estonian rebels, Oda meets Schnaps, a wounded Estonian anarchist. Hiding him at Poll and secretly nursing him back to health, Oda risks triggering a tragic chain of events.
An East Berlin love story, The Weissensee Saga concerns the Kupfers, communist party loyalists whose patriarch Hans, is a member of the notorious Stasi secret service; and the Hausmanns, a family of dissidents whose matriarch, Dunja, is under Stasi surveillance. When policeman Martin Kupfer and young trouble–maker Julia Hausmann fall in love, their politically forbidden relationship will rock the foundations of both families.
All picked for their honest take on the radical people, lives and topics in modern day Germany, the festival’s six documentaries include a very poignant reflection on the power of the bikini and a look at the life and work of avant-garde artist Otto Muhl.
To commemorate its double-digit anniversary, this year’s festival will look back at the best German films of the last decade with special screenings of the hit 2002 feature Solino by acclaimed director Faith Akin and the freaky 2003 manga-inspired The Stratosphere Girl.
Festival goers can also expect a special Q&A session with famous German actor Burghart Klaussner, as well as a number of live panels with the likes of director Wim Wenders, cinema expert Andreas Rothbauer and film critic Hans-Georg Rodek.
Audi German Film Festival screenings are being held at Kino Cinemas (lower ground floor, Collins Place, 45 Collins St, Melbourne) and Palace Cinema Como (corner of Toorak Rd and Chapel St, South Yarra) from now until April 18. Visit the German Film Festival website for booking information, as well as a full rundown of the festival program.