Tag: Cinema of Germany
Yunan | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Nothing is Everything: Eldin’s Continuing Exploration of Existential Crisis
For his sophomore film Yunan, intended as the second chapter in a thematic trilogy following 2021’s...
What Marielle Knows | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
The Best Little Secrets Are Kept: Hambalek’s Absurdly Skewers the Virtues of Honesty
Honesty may indeed be the best policy and maybe the truth might...
Hysteria | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Burn After Filming: Büyükatalay Explores Colliding Perspectives in Nuanced Drama
While it can’t be described as a classic thriller, Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s sophomore film Hysteria...
The Good Sister (Schwesterherz) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Sister, My Sister: Fischer Tests the Moral Fibers of Familial Bonds
An ethical dilemma curdles in the heart of Sarah Miro Fischer’s directorial debut Schwesterherz...
Das Licht | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Wasting Electricity: Tykwer Illuminates a Narrative Void
Despite revealing itself to be an interconnected rumination on aspects of the soul, Tom Tykwer’s Das Licht (The...
Fourthcoming: Maren Ade Setting Up ‘Zauberwort’ for 2026 Shoot
Ulrike Ottinger came out of a long gestation period for The Blood Countess and now fellow female German filmmaker Maren Ade is in early...
The Universal Theory (Die Theorie Von Allem) | Review
Multiverse of Sadness: Kroger Captivates with Cryptic Cold War Sci-Fi Exploit
Although it will invariably be confused with the 2014 Stephen Hawking biopic, Timm Kröger’s...
Death Will Come (La Mort viendra) | 2024 Locarno Film Festival Review
And Bear Your Eyes: Hochhäusler’s Grim Sketch of a Tangled Underworld
Death, it seems, does not quite become Christoph Hochhäusler, the Berlin School alum making...
Shared Báth: Huppert, Rois, Minichmayr & Eidinger Set for Ottinger’s “The Blood Countess”
It has been over a dozen years in the making. We can confirm that Isabelle Huppert has indeed remained on board, so has Sophie...
Music | Review
Oedipus Shrugged: Schanelec Finds Tragedy is the Song That Doesn’t End
There’s little use clinging to the description of Angela Schanelec’s latest film Music as...
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything | Review
Goodbye, First Love: Atef Explores Pangs of Passion Amidst Detached Reunification
For her sixth feature film, Germany’s Emily Atef returns to themes of circumstance...
Dying (Sterben) | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Family Matters: Glasner’s Sprawling Portrait of Chaotic Dysfunction
Exemplifying Tolstoy’s famous Anna Karenina quote on ‘every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,’ German...
From Hilde, With Love | 2024 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Germany, Pale Mother: Dresen Locates the Good Germans of WWII
It comes as no surprise an old-fashioned director such Andreas Dresen is adept at making...
Piaffe | Review
Horse Girl: Oren Gets Hot to Trot in Strange, Alluring Debut
What is it about horses, exactly, and their tacit parallels with subterranean conduits of...
Afire | Review
Pleasure to Burn: Petzold Stokes the Flames in Diffident Drama
A fragile male ego finds itself dismantled in Afire (Roter Himmel), the second chapter...
The Exiles: Ilker Çatak Travels to Turkish Backdrop for New Project “Yellow Letters”
Striking while the iron is hot, multi Berlinale prize-winning filmmaker Ilker Çatak will be moving on to his next project later this year with...
Till the End of the Night | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Night Boos: Hochhäusler Bungles Black Market Crime Thriller
Blending fatal romanticism and B-movie genre tropes, it’s not difficult to see where a certain Fassbinder sensibility...
Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Road to Nowhere: Von Trotta Presents the Basics on Bachmann
Throughout her career, Margarethe Von Trotta, a key figure from the New German Wave of...
The Teachers’ Lounge | 2023 Berlin Film Festival Review
Dangerous Finds: Catak Mines the Impossibility of Idealism in Departmental Dilemma
Sometimes maintaining the semblance of a ‘safe space’ means sublimating self-righteousness, a lesson learned...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #12. Christian Petzold’s Afire
Afire
So deserving and so close at cracking our top 10, the great German filmmaker Christian Petzold continues at his break-neck speed of quantity and...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #62. Mareike Engelhardt’s Rabia
Rabia
A new voice in German cinema embarks on a journey that could have been pulled from the headlines but it's the destination and possible...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #73. Emily Atef’s Some Day We Will Tell Each Other Everything
Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen
Quickly after her Cannes Un Certain Regard premiere of More Than Ever, Emily Atef moved onto her next project...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #119. Frauke Finsterwalder’s Sisi & Ich
Sisi & I
Sisi became all the rage with Marie Kreutzer's Corsage but another "Sisi" film was also in the works. Topically we'd love to...
All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) | Review
War is Hell: Germany’s Oscar Entry Delivers Blunt & Brutal Depiction of WWI
The most haunting image in filmmaker Edward Berger’s latest take on All...
Habitat For Humanity: “Human Flowers Of Flesh” Shipped Off to The Cinema Guild
The Cinema Guild folks have just netted the popular Locarno comp title by Helena Wittmann. Her sophomore feature Human Flowers Of Flesh will continue...
Valeska Grisebach Hits the Trail for “The Dreamt Adventurer”
We are big on film funding news as sometimes it gives us a first glimpse on new projects from some of our favorite auteurs...
Fire Island: Christian Petzold Begins Production on “The Red Sky” with Muse Paula Beer
A filmmaker with multiple irons in the fire has decided to go where the glow is. Thanks to our friends over at The Film...
Joy Division: Emily Atef Begins Production on “Some Day We Will Tell Each Other Everything”
Fresh off the world premiere screening of More Than Ever (read review) in the Un Certain Regard section, Emily Atef is already back in...
Mr. Bachmann and His Class | Review
Teacher Feature: Speth Captures the Complex Alchemy of Education and Empathy in Moving Documentary
What do you remember most about your experience as a student,...
AEIOU – A Quick Alphabet of Love | 2022 Berlin International Film Festival Review
The Consonants of Love: Krebitz Gets Caught in an Odd Romance
“It all begins with A,” so begins the omniscient third-person narration of Anna, an...
Fabian – Going to the Dogs | Review
The Dog Days Aren’t Over: Graf Puts a New Coat of Paint on the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, aka the German Republic, which lasted...
Undine | Review
Till Human Voices Wake Us: Petzold Gets Mythologically Romantic
A classical figure of mythology and beyond, the Undine (or Siren), a water nymph creature who’s...
Next Door | 2021 Berlin International Film Festival Review
Neighbor Labor: Brühl Gruels Through Interesting Scenario, Banal Characters in Debut
Gentrification is supposedly the thrust of Next Door, Daniel Brühl’s directorial debut which showcases...
I’m Your Man | 2021 Berlin International Film Festival Review
The Girl and the Robot: Schrader Wows with Exceptional Exploration of Love, or Something Like It
Harlan Ellison memorably titled a collection of short stories,...
Malina (1991) | Review
You Can’t Handle the Fugue: Schroeter Burns Bright with Infamous Bachmann Adaptation
What is it about Werner Schroeter’s Malina so seemingly repellant it resulted in...
I Was at Home, But…. | Review
The Play’s the Thing: Schanelec Shines with Striking Dynamic on Artifice vs. Authenticity
Words pour out of us, as the main character vocalizes in one...
The Audition | Review
A History of Violins: Hoss at a Loss in Weisse’s Careful Character Study
Actor Ina Weisse returns to the director’s chair for the first time...
Balloon | Review
An Air Affair: Herbig Revisits GDR Getaway in Strait-laced Thriller
German director Michael Herbig, best known for his comedic films in his native country, makes...
Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #101. Enfant Terrible – Oskar Roehler
Enfant Terrible
Oskar Roehler is one of Germany’s most well-traveled directors, so his desire to mount a portrayal of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in his latest...
The Golden Glove | Review
No Glove No Love: Akin Revels in Garish Grotesqueries with Squalid Period Piece
Turkish-German director Fatih Akin resurrects the obscure German serial killer Fritz Honka...
Pelican Blood | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
Mother May I Sleep with Martyr?: Gebbe Dresses in Distress with Maternal Drama
It’s always lamentable to find a charismatic actor stymied by a poorly...
Interview: Daniel Brühl | 2018 Marrakech Intl. Film Festival
An actor and swiss army knife multi-linguistic for almost three decades now with seminal films in Good Bye Lenin! (2003) and The Edukators (2004)...
Criterion Collection: Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (1972) | Blu-ray Review
Criterion scores ones of the most immersive additions to their prestigious collection with the recuperation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972-73 eight hours plus five...
Interview: Philip Gröning – My Brother’s Name Is Robert and He Is an Idiot | 2018 Berlin Intl. Film Festival
Evoking narrative similarities to The Police Officer’s Wife (2013), Philip Gröning's seventh film, My Brother’s Name Is Robert and He Is an Idiot is a marathon...
Interview: Thomas Stuber – In the Aisle | 2018 Berlin Intl. Film Festival
Continuing with some of his lost souls interests found in his award-winning TIFF debut A Heavy Heart (2015), Thomas Stuber's sophomore feature film focuses on characters who...
