At the 40th film fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis (14.–20.1.2019) in Saar­brück­en two DFFB films were award­ed three prizes. LET THE BELL RING (R/​B: Christin Fre­itag, K: Max Preiss, P: Eva Kemme, Tobias Siebert, Ans­gar Frerich) won the prize for the best music in a doc­u­men­tary and DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN (R/​B: Susanne Hein­rich, K: Agnes Pakoz­di, P: Jana Kreissl) won the prize of the ecu­meni­cal jury as well as the prize for the best fea­ture film.

The jury jus­ti­fies its deci­sion for LET THE BELL RING as fol­lows: “Vir­tu­os wer­den pulsierende Song-Pro­duk­tio­nen mit Score-Musik ver­webt, gekon­nt wer­den pathetis­che Musikklis­chees ver­mieden. Ener­getisch verdichtet sich die Musik immer mehr bis hin zum pack­enden Finale. Doku­men­tarfilme feiern das Leben. Die Film­musik von Jonathan Ritzel feiert den Traum des Box­ers Mal­com mit ein­er Kar­riere als Profi­box­er zu reüssieren und begleit­et ihn auf sein­er Helden­reise.“

The jury con­cretizes their deci­sion for DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN as fol­lows: „Unendlich komisch und gle­ichzeit­ig tod­trau­rig, bis ins Detail kom­ponierte Bilder, poet­is­che Dialoge, in denen Beziehun­gen zum Lifestyle erko­ren wer­den. Der Blick für den anderen verbleibt in der Leere. Die eigen­willig-kon­se­quente Bild­sprache eröffnet Leer­stellen und Räume zum Wei­t­er­denken. Scho­nungs­los und präzise wer­den gesellschaftliche Zustände vorge­führt, hin­ter­fragt und an die Zuschauen­den weit­ergegeben. Eine junge Frau wird zur Symp­tomträgerin ein­er Gesellschaft, die ihre Glücksver­sprechen nicht ein­löst.“

The com­plete state­ments can be read here.

The DFFB is rep­re­sent­ed with two films at this year’s 48th Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam (23.1.–3.2.2019). The fol­low­ing films are invit­ed:

Bright Future Com­pe­ti­tion

DREISSIG (R/​B: Simona Kos­to­va, K: Anselm Belser, P: Cey­lan-Ale­jan­dro Ata­man-Checa)

Bright Future

DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN  (R/​B: Susanne Hein­rich, K: Agnes Pakoz­di, P: Jana Kreissl)

The Rot­ter­dam Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val is one of the most impor­tant film events in Europe. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the fes­ti­val and the screen­ing dates can be found here.

Sev­en DFFB film con­tri­bu­tions will be shown at the anniver­sary edi­tion of the 40th Film Fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Preis (14.–20.1.2019) in Saar­brück­en. The fol­low­ing projects are invit­ed:

Com­pe­ti­tion Fea­ture Film:
DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN (R/​B: Susanne Hein­rich, K: Agnes Pakoz­di, P: Jana Kreissl)

Com­pe­ti­tion doc­u­men­tary film:

LET THE BELL RING (R/​B: Christin Fre­itag, K: Max Preiss, P: Eva Kemme, Tobias Siebert, Ans­gar Frerich)

Short Film Com­pe­ti­tion:

DER JUNGE MIT DEM KAROHEMD (R/​B: Alek­san­dra Odić, K: Katha­ri­na Wahl, P: Ibrahim-Utku Erdo­gan)

ABDRIFT (R: Gian Suh­n­er, B: Gian Suh­n­er, Jacob Haupt­mann, K: Nina Reich­mann, P: Mari­am Shat­berashvili, Lucas Thiem)

MOP-Visions:

STRAIGHT FAMILY (R: Jas­mine Alakari, Eline Gehring, Sanela Salket­ic, K: Patrick Jasim, Agnes Pakoz­di, Pao­la Cal­vo, Raphael Bein­der, P: Daria Wich­mann, Cecil­ia Trau­vet­ter, Lucas Thiem, Bern­hard Schnei­der, Simon Lubin­s­ki, Vic­tor Buza­l­ka)

MOP — Watch­list

LIEBESFILM (R/​B: Robert Bohrer/​Emma Rosa Simon, K: Emma Rosa Simon)

NIXEN (R/​B: Katin­ka Nar­jes, K: Car­men Tre­ichl, P: Sabine Schmidt)

The annu­al film fes­ti­val Max-Ophüls-Preis is one of the most impor­tant forums for young Ger­man-lan­guage film tal­ents. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the film fes­ti­val and a detailed overview of screen­ing dates can be found  here.

The new ARD prime­time show DIE HEILAND — WIR SIND ANWALT about a blind lawyer and her assis­tant is cur­rent­ly air­ing on Tues­days at 8:15 pm. The Ser­i­al Eyes par­tic­i­pants of 2018/​19 inter­viewed the head writer Jana Bur­bach and staff writer Niko Schulz-Dorn­burg (SE 2014/​15) about the mak­ing of the show.

Q: How did DIE HEILAND come about?

Jana: Die Hei­land is based on the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal book by a Berlin-based and born-blind lawyer, Pamela Pab­st. The book was pub­lished about 6 years ago. Vio­la Jäger from Olgafilm optioned the film rights to that book and then start­ed to devel­op it. [The adap­ta­tion] was orig­i­nal­ly meant to be a TV-movie; then the RBB, the Berlin-Bran­den­burg broad­cast­er, decid­ed to turn it into a long-run­ning series. I took over from exist­ing mate­r­i­al by Silke Zertz. By the time Vio­la approached me, three scripts and three expos­es were ready, but they didn’t get through to the final approval by the ARD com­mis­sion­ing board. That was when I took over with Niko and the author Christoph Cal­len­berg. It was the sum­mer of 2016, I think.

Q: You said that it was based on a book by a real lawyer. She also had an assis­tant in real life? Were they both part of the cre­ative process?

Jana: Yes, we all met Pamela Pab­st. I actu­al­ly end­ed up spend­ing a lot of time with her, because for me [this project] rep­re­sent­ed a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge. As a see­ing per­son, I think it is impos­si­ble to real­ly get [what it means to be blind], but I could start to empathize and could put that into the sto­ry and try to under­stand what it might mean for her assis­tant as well. We actu­al­ly went togeth­er on a jour­ney to Bochum, where she had a court case. I accom­pa­nied her all day – on the train, in the hotel, the next morn­ing, while eat­ing… it was through all these that I got first-hand expe­ri­ence.

Niko: You became her assis­tant!

Jana: Yes, and then the blind­ness start­ed com­ing to life in the scripts. Of course, I also con­sult­ed her for legal stuff and I end­ed up read­ing to her all the scripts. She was like “Jana, it’s real­ly not nec­es­sary, the com­put­er can read me the script.” I thought this would have been nicer, so I con­tin­ued. At the end, she asked me to keep on com­ing. I thought, “What have I got myself into?” [laughs], but actu­al­ly we became friends.

Read the whole inter­view with Jana Bur­bach

This week, there will be a prepa­ra­tion sem­i­nar with Peter B. Schu­mann und Enrique Sánchez Lan­sch for the mas­ter­class of Pino Solanas at the DFFB.

As part of the prepa­ra­tion week, there will be a lec­ture for stu­dents by Ben Gib­son on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 26th:

Third Cin­e­ma, People’s News­reels and the Counter-Infor­ma­tion Cin­e­ma before and after the Latin Amer­i­can New Wave

Ben Gib­son will give a lec­ture illus­trat­ed by short clips which aims to put Solanas’ work, from La Hora de los Hornos onwards, in the aes­thet­ic and his­tor­i­cal con­text of wider “par­al­lel” and “alter­na­tive” cin­e­ma, both its ances­try and inher­i­tances up to today, from Eisen­stein to the Web Essay.

After 15 years Pino Solanas is vis­it­ing the DFFB and its stu­dents for the sec­ond time. Solanas’ first, and still most impor­tant fea­ture, La hora de los hornos, had reper­cus­sions across Latin Amer­i­ca and the world as a mod­el of a polit­i­cal­ly mil­i­tant cin­e­ma, by pro­vid­ing counter-infor­ma­tion to con­tra­dict the long-estab­lished dis­cours­es that nat­u­ralised social inequal­i­ties and pro­vid­ed cov­er for elites who, in coop­er­a­tion with for­eign cap­i­tal, exploit­ed the lands and peo­ples of the con­ti­nent. The film, in what Solanas dubbed a “cine-acto”, pro­vokes the spec­ta­tor to act through the use of cin­e­ma vérité and news­reel footage, inter­views, shock mon­tage and by inter­rupt­ing itself to call for debate.

Fer­nan­do Eze­quiel ‘Pino’ Solanas, born 16 Feb­ru­ary 1936, is an Argen­tine film direc­tor, screen­writer and politi­cian. His films include La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Fur­naces, 1968), Tan­gos: el exilio de Gardel (1985), Sur (1988), El via­je (1992), La nube (1998) and Memo­ria del saqueo (2004), among many oth­ers. Since 2013, he has been a Nation­al Sen­a­tor rep­re­sent­ing the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

We are very pleased that four DFFB films are nom­i­nat­ed for the FIRST STEPS Award 2018:

Full-length fea­ture films:

HAGAZUSSA (R/​B: Lukas Feigelfeld, K: Mariel Baque­iro, P: Simon Lubin­s­ki, Lukas Feigelfeld)

SARAH SPIELT EINEN WERWOLF (R: Katha­ri­na Wyss, B: Katha­ri­na Wyss, Josa Sesink, K: Armin Dierlof, P: Christophe Marzal)

Götz George Young Tal­ent Award:

SARAH SPIELT EINEN WERWOLF (R: Katha­ri­na Wyss, B: Katha­ri­na Wyss, Josa Sesink, K: Armin Dierlof, P: Christophe Marzal)

Doc­u­men­tary:

LET THE BELL RING  (R/​B: Christin Fre­itag,  K: Max Preiss, P: Eva Kemme, Tobias Siebert, Ans­gar Frerich)

Michael Ball­haus Prize for cam­era grad­u­ates::

HAGAZUSSA  for the cam­era by  Mariel Baque­iro

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the FIRST STEP Award can be found here.

Michael Bertl (Head of Cin­e­matog­ra­phy at the DFFB) has been select­ed to par­tic­i­pate with his film “What Doesn´t Kill Us” (direct­ed by San­dra Net­tel­beck) at the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val 2018. The upcom­ing release in Ger­many will be on the 15th of Novem­ber 2018.

Syn­op­sis: As a divorced father of two teenage daugh­ters, with his ex-wife as best friend, too many pecu­liar patients and a new dog, psy­chother­a­pist Max doesn’t need anoth­er chal­lenge. But when Sophie, a com­pul­sive gam­bler with a boyfriend prob­lem, shows up late for her appoint­ment, she rocks his world and he falls in love with her. The more Max attempts to keep it pro­fes­sion­al, the more their lives get entan­gled. So how can he man­age to help her with­out get­ting involved? How can lov­ing her not lead to los­ing her alto­geth­er? Wrestling with his con­science and his heart, torn between the patient and the woman he loves, he has no choice but to stick to the famous air­plane rule: help your­self first before you can help oth­ers.

Trail­er

Locarno Film­fes­ti­val Pro­gram & Sec­tions

We con­grat­u­late our senior lec­tur­er for pro­duc­tion and grad­u­ate Anna de Paoli, who was award­ed the Förder­preis Neues Deutsches Kino at the 36th Film­fest München as the best upcom­ing pro­duc­er. The jury empha­sizes her pro­duc­tion work for her new film A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL, as the film was made with­out the usu­al fund­ing from tele­vi­sions and can com­pete qual­i­ta­tive­ly with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

The full jury state­ment can be read here.