Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #102. Cherry Blossoms and Demons (Kirschblüten & Dämonen) – Doris Dörrie

Cherry Blossoms and Demons (Kirschblüten & Dämonen)

German director Doris Dörrie follows up her celebrated 2008 film Cherry Blossoms with a sequel of sorts, Cherry Blossoms and Demons (Kirschblüten & Dämonen), reuniting the cast members of her earlier German-Tokyo melodrama, including the great Hannelore Elsner, Birgit Minichmayr (of Maren Ade’s Everyone Else, 2009), Elmar Wepper, Golo Euler, Aya Irizuki, Floriane Daniel, Felix Eitner, Sophie Ragall, and the celebrated Japanese actress Kiki Kirin (most recently of Koreeda’s Shoplifters). The project (which has also been listed as the title Demons for Tea) is produced by Anita Schneider and Viola Jäger of Olga Films in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and ARTE. The film is lensed by cinematographer Hanno Lentz (of Dorrie’s The Hairdresser and Cherry Blossoms as well as David Wnendt’s Look Who’s Back, 2015). Also a celebrated author, Dorrie, who has been directing films since the late 1970s, is one of Germany’s more underrated contemporary directors. She’s competed twice in Venice, with 1983’s Straight through the Heart and 2002’s Nackt. She competed in Berlin with 2008’s Cherry Blossoms, and was programmed in the Berlin Panorama with 2016’s Fukushima, Mon Amour, which took home a couple prizes from the sidebar.

Gist: The children of Trudi (Hannelore Elsner) and Rudi (Elmar Wepper) are now grown and struggling through various personal issues. But both literal and figurative ghosts from their parents’ past are suddenly resurrected.

Release Date/Prediction: Dorrie shot the project in April of 2018. A return to the Berlin competition seems likely considering 2008’s Cherry Blossoms also played there.