Titles include Vincent Perez’s ‘The Edge Of The Blade’ and Leo Leigh’s ‘Sweet Sue’.
Filmest München has secured six world premieres for its upcoming 40th anniversary edition, including Vincent Perez’sThe Edge Of The Blade and Leo Leigh’s UK comedy drama Sweet Sue, recently acquirred by Curzon.
The festival in Munich has long been a staging ground for the world premieres of German films but is now looking to establish itself as a launchpad for more international titles, building on last year’s world premiere of Marcelo Gomes’ Brazilian drama Paloma.
Swiss actor-director Perez will travel to...
Filmest München has secured six world premieres for its upcoming 40th anniversary edition, including Vincent Perez’sThe Edge Of The Blade and Leo Leigh’s UK comedy drama Sweet Sue, recently acquirred by Curzon.
The festival in Munich has long been a staging ground for the world premieres of German films but is now looking to establish itself as a launchpad for more international titles, building on last year’s world premiere of Marcelo Gomes’ Brazilian drama Paloma.
Swiss actor-director Perez will travel to...
- 6/7/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
They will screen as part of the New German Films line-up at the 40th edition of the German festival later this month.
New feature films by Asli Özge, Maximilian Erlenwein and Henrika Kull are among 15 titles premiering in the New German Cinema sidebar at the Filmfest München’s 40th anniversary edition (June 23 - July 1).
Turkish-born director Özge’s thriller Black Box, whose cast includes Luise Heyer, Felix Kramer, and Christian Berkel, will open the section on June 24 and be released theatrically in Germany by Port au Prince Pictures on August 10 .
The Zeitsprung Pictures production was co-produced with the Dardennes brothers...
New feature films by Asli Özge, Maximilian Erlenwein and Henrika Kull are among 15 titles premiering in the New German Cinema sidebar at the Filmfest München’s 40th anniversary edition (June 23 - July 1).
Turkish-born director Özge’s thriller Black Box, whose cast includes Luise Heyer, Felix Kramer, and Christian Berkel, will open the section on June 24 and be released theatrically in Germany by Port au Prince Pictures on August 10 .
The Zeitsprung Pictures production was co-produced with the Dardennes brothers...
- 6/6/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Counterparts
Munich Filmfest
MUNICH -- In Counterparts, the feature debut of young Cologne director Jan Bonny that recently screened at the Munich Filmfest, the film's strengths and weaknesses are deeply entangled. While the acting is good -- especially when it needs to be, during chillingly matter-of-fact scenes of domestic violence -- there is practically zero character development. The main problem is that Counterparts completely fails to create a sense of suspense, which will most likely condemn it to a short art house run in German-speaking territories and brief festival exposure.
There are other good points that somehow also end up as problems. The Dogma-style cinematic discipline -- no musical scoring, no makeup, environmental lighting, all hand-held camera work by cinematographer Bernhard Keller -- creates a depressingly truthful sense of how everyday and common this family tragedy can be. Yet many crucial moments are played with the main actor's back to the camera, so it is almost impossible to identify with what the characters are going through.
The trouble starts with the script, which Bonny co-wrote with Christina Ebelt. While it's not difficult to accept Bonny's twist on the domestic violence problem -- and it's not giving away much to reveal that it is the wife who is beating the husband -- the background of her frustration and his emotional helplessness is too pat and easy.
The wife, grade school teacher Anne (Victoria Trauttmannsdorff), has a domineering, hypercritical father (Jochen Striebeck), and her police officer husband Georg (Matthias Brandt) needs to please everyone. These two points are elaborated again and again when one or at most two mentions would have sufficed.
So a ranking policeman is being physically abused on a regular basis by a schoolteacher, but there's no wondering about how it's all going to end because Bonny makes it clear early on that it never will. Not all films have to result in a happy ending for the main character, but there at least has to be a struggle for triumph to engage the audience's emotions even if victory remains forever out of reach.
Given the rich psychological and explosive plot possibilities of the basic situation Bonny has given us, Counterparts steadfastly refuses to make the most of itself.
COUNTERPARTS
A Heimatfilm production in association with WDR/Cologne and Film Foundation
Credits:
Director: Jan Bonny
Screenwriters: Jon Bonny, Chrstina Ebelt
Producer: Bettina Brokemper
Director of photography: Bernhard Keller
Music: Sonoton
Costume designer: Frauke Firl
Editor: Stefan Stabenow
Cast:
Anne: Victoria Trauttmannsdorff
Georg: Matthias Brandt
Michael: Wotan Wilke Moering
Denise: Susanne Bormann
Hans Josef: Jochen Striebeck
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
MUNICH -- In Counterparts, the feature debut of young Cologne director Jan Bonny that recently screened at the Munich Filmfest, the film's strengths and weaknesses are deeply entangled. While the acting is good -- especially when it needs to be, during chillingly matter-of-fact scenes of domestic violence -- there is practically zero character development. The main problem is that Counterparts completely fails to create a sense of suspense, which will most likely condemn it to a short art house run in German-speaking territories and brief festival exposure.
There are other good points that somehow also end up as problems. The Dogma-style cinematic discipline -- no musical scoring, no makeup, environmental lighting, all hand-held camera work by cinematographer Bernhard Keller -- creates a depressingly truthful sense of how everyday and common this family tragedy can be. Yet many crucial moments are played with the main actor's back to the camera, so it is almost impossible to identify with what the characters are going through.
The trouble starts with the script, which Bonny co-wrote with Christina Ebelt. While it's not difficult to accept Bonny's twist on the domestic violence problem -- and it's not giving away much to reveal that it is the wife who is beating the husband -- the background of her frustration and his emotional helplessness is too pat and easy.
The wife, grade school teacher Anne (Victoria Trauttmannsdorff), has a domineering, hypercritical father (Jochen Striebeck), and her police officer husband Georg (Matthias Brandt) needs to please everyone. These two points are elaborated again and again when one or at most two mentions would have sufficed.
So a ranking policeman is being physically abused on a regular basis by a schoolteacher, but there's no wondering about how it's all going to end because Bonny makes it clear early on that it never will. Not all films have to result in a happy ending for the main character, but there at least has to be a struggle for triumph to engage the audience's emotions even if victory remains forever out of reach.
Given the rich psychological and explosive plot possibilities of the basic situation Bonny has given us, Counterparts steadfastly refuses to make the most of itself.
COUNTERPARTS
A Heimatfilm production in association with WDR/Cologne and Film Foundation
Credits:
Director: Jan Bonny
Screenwriters: Jon Bonny, Chrstina Ebelt
Producer: Bettina Brokemper
Director of photography: Bernhard Keller
Music: Sonoton
Costume designer: Frauke Firl
Editor: Stefan Stabenow
Cast:
Anne: Victoria Trauttmannsdorff
Georg: Matthias Brandt
Michael: Wotan Wilke Moering
Denise: Susanne Bormann
Hans Josef: Jochen Striebeck
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/24/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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