Comments on: German Film Festival: Tips please

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:06:37 +0000

Saw ‘Stopped on Track’ on Saturday. It may get a commercial release because it won some awards on the weekend in Germany. It’s gruelling and true. It combines all the wretchedness, tedium and sadness that accompanies a slow death. And i think the audience feels these three qualities in equla measure, with a couple of light moments thrown in. Very powerful. Great acting. Sone irony at the expense of the health profession (I think – may not have been intended).

By: Stephen Hill

Stephen Hill — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:50:27 +0000

i’ll second the recommendation for “Sleeping Sickness’ – a sort of modern day Conradian “Heart of Darkness” based around a different sort of colonial arrogance with an interesting twist.

By: Stephen Hill

Stephen Hill — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:04:34 +0000

Just came back from a German Film festival event, I’d recommend “Fraulein and the Sandman” or is it just called “the Sandman,” which as the title attests loosely draws on E.T.A. Hoffman’s mythological fable. I thought it was very well made film, clever and sprightly with a fascinating mediation on fantasticism, about a character whose body exudes sand and who finds his world tipped upside down by the emanations of his strange dream-life. It takes a good film-maker to execute a fabricated reality narrative -it can all too easily get overblown and lose all bearings to anything interesting, but luckily in this case there is enough subtlety and sophistication to pull it off. I’d write more but I need some sleep.

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:53:23 +0000

Saw ‘Sleeping Sickness’at MIFF last year – definitely not for everyone but I thought it was interesting. The program looks good – pity they’re not repeating the screening more than once or twice of most films – the times are a bit limiting.

Have a number of picks but will definitely try to see ‘Stopped on Track’ because I loved Dresen’s last film ‘Cloud Nine’.

By: Martin C. Jones

Martin C. Jones — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 02:06:37 +0000

“Hotel Lux” is a good tragicomedy: Michael “Bully” Herbig is a very successful comedian, and the film has received several awards and nominations.
(If you like it, “Robert Zimmermann Is Tangled up in Love” is an earlier film from the same director also showing.)

International politics wonks should check out “Joscka and Mr Fischer”; he’s a fascinating documentary subject.

If you’re into football (soccer) and or Daniel Brühl, “Lessons of a Dream” could be interesting. If not, this probably isn’t your thing.

“Men in the City” was a big hit a few years ago, and “Men in the City 2″ is (unsurprisingly) the sequel. Mainstream German comedy with several well-known actors. Not my thing, but neither is much mainstream Anglo comedy.

“Three” I’ll probably go see simply based on its director: Tom Tykwer. (Tykwer also did Run Lola Run, and Perfume – Story of a Murderer.)