“Till the End of the Night” opens with what initially seems a Brechtian flourish: a nifty time-lapse shot of a bare shell of an apartment being painted, fitted, decorated and accessorized to an apparently lived-in state, as a vintage German torch song by Heidi Brühl crackles over the soundtrack. It’s not a film set being dressed, however, but a police one — the home base for an elaborate undercover investigation. It’s not the first time Christoph Hochhäusler’s romantic detective thriller will hint at subversive ambitions that turn out, upon closer investigation, to be rather conventional. Tossing a fraught transgender love story in the middle of an otherwise standard cop procedural, the film doesn’t much satisfy on either level, with superficial sexual politics and slack suspense. Despite a Berlinale competition slot, prospects beyond home turf appear limited.
What interest and ambiguity “Till the End of the Night” does...
What interest and ambiguity “Till the End of the Night” does...
- 2/25/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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, particularly in elementary school? Do you remember the process of learning subjects or do you remember the tone and demeanor of certain educators? Chances are, these memories are riddled with the detritus of various competing energies, including home life, current events, interactions with peers, etc. But no one forgets a teacher who moved them, helped them, or took the time to get to know them. Director Maria Speth, who fluctuates between narrative and documentary filmmaking, has formatted a formidably intimate documentary experience with her cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider in Mr.…...
What do you remember most about your experience as a student, particularly in elementary school? Do you remember the process of learning subjects or do you remember the tone and demeanor of certain educators? Chances are, these memories are riddled with the detritus of various competing energies, including home life, current events, interactions with peers, etc. But no one forgets a teacher who moved them, helped them, or took the time to get to know them. Director Maria Speth, who fluctuates between narrative and documentary filmmaking, has formatted a formidably intimate documentary experience with her cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider in Mr.…...
- 2/18/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The title is a bit misleading in German writer-director Nicolette Krebitz’s offbeat romantic comedy “Aeiou — A Quick Alphabet of Love.” Despite its promise of deeper meaning attached to all the vowels in the alphabet, it’s ‘A’ on which it fixates: Said aloud and elongated, we are told, the first letter vocalizes a spectrum of feeling ranging from primal need to sharp pain to orgasmic release. Sure enough, all are present in this unpredictable tale of mutual misfit attraction between a juvenile delinquent and the middle-aged actor whose role in his life shifts from mentor to mother to lover. It’s difficult, prickly material that “Aeiou” handles with a light touch, even as the narrative lurches recklessly across genres into flighty caper territory.
Marked by a gentle deadpan drollness that occasionally blossoms into fanciful romanticism, this an altogether less intense proposition than Krebitz’s last feature, the Sundance-selector 2016 psychodrama “Wild,...
Marked by a gentle deadpan drollness that occasionally blossoms into fanciful romanticism, this an altogether less intense proposition than Krebitz’s last feature, the Sundance-selector 2016 psychodrama “Wild,...
- 2/13/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Fresh off its world premiere in the Berlin International Film Festival’s competition program, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize, Maria Speth’s feature documentary Mr Bachmann And His Class has sold into multiple territories.
Berlin-based sales rep Films Boutique has closed deals for: Austria (Filmgarten), BeNeLux (Periscoop), China (Huanxi Media), Ex-Yugo (Five Stars Film Distribution), Greece (Ama), Hungary (Cirko), Italy (Wanted), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), Portugal (Leopardo), Spain (Filmin), Switzerland (Dcm), and the UK (New Wave). Discussions are also underway for France and Latin America.
Maria Speth directed and produced the pic through her Madonnen Film Production banner and co-wrote with Reinhold Vorschneider. The doc is an intimate portrayal of the bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
German Distributor Grandfilm will release the film...
Berlin-based sales rep Films Boutique has closed deals for: Austria (Filmgarten), BeNeLux (Periscoop), China (Huanxi Media), Ex-Yugo (Five Stars Film Distribution), Greece (Ama), Hungary (Cirko), Italy (Wanted), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), Portugal (Leopardo), Spain (Filmin), Switzerland (Dcm), and the UK (New Wave). Discussions are also underway for France and Latin America.
Maria Speth directed and produced the pic through her Madonnen Film Production banner and co-wrote with Reinhold Vorschneider. The doc is an intimate portrayal of the bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
German Distributor Grandfilm will release the film...
- 3/24/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Over an unhurried three and a half hours in her new documentary, Mr. Bachmann and His Class, director Maria Speth gives us the gift of watching children try to learn, at the same time trying to be teenagers, and at once trying to be German. Some fail, some succeed, others simply fall asleep—or check out. The setting is an elementary school in the central German town of Stadtallendorf, in which the students, much like the town itself, is made up of a diverse mix of national origins, including Turkish, Russian, Italian, and Bulgarian. Their chilled out teacher, a laidback rocker type wearing AC/DC hoodies and a grizzled look, tries to engage the students and their varying degrees of assimilation and language fluency, when they are clearly facing profound social and familial challenges outside of the classroom, at home and in Germany at large.Reminiscent of the films of...
- 3/4/2021
- MUBI
However long ago your school days, you can still name your favorite teacher. Maria Speth’s affectionate and inspiring portrait of an affectionate and inspiring man leaves little doubt that for a vast proportion of the students who’ve passed through the halls of Georg Büchner Comprehensive in the German factory town of Stadtallendorf during the past 17 years, that name will be “Herr Bachmann.”
But as much as the laid-back, woolly-hatted Dieter Bachmann — a slouchy man who looks more like a rock-band roadie than a schoolteacher — is the primary subject of this lengthy but absorbing and illuminating documentary, and collectively, the pupils of class 6b emerge as his rambunctious backing band, “Mr. Bachmann and His Class” also performs a third function. It makes you see the valor of all the individuals working within an education system whose institutions and practices are more usually met with cynicism and suspicion. No less than Einstein famously asserted,...
But as much as the laid-back, woolly-hatted Dieter Bachmann — a slouchy man who looks more like a rock-band roadie than a schoolteacher — is the primary subject of this lengthy but absorbing and illuminating documentary, and collectively, the pupils of class 6b emerge as his rambunctious backing band, “Mr. Bachmann and His Class” also performs a third function. It makes you see the valor of all the individuals working within an education system whose institutions and practices are more usually met with cynicism and suspicion. No less than Einstein famously asserted,...
- 3/2/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Maria Speth and Bence Fliegauf are taking aim at the Golden Bear with their latest works, selected for the Berlin Competition. Berlin-based international sales agent Films Boutique is all set for the 71st Berlinale and the upcoming European Film Market, clutching two titles that will be taking aim at the Golden Bear, one documentary in Berlinale Special, and four Market Screenings. Starting off with the Berlinale Competition, German filmmaker Maria Speth returns seven years after her latest film, Daughters, with her second documentary, Mr Bachmann and His Class. Co-penned by the director and Reinhold Vorschneider, the film portrays the bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in. The documentary was produced by Speth for Madonnen Film. The other contender for the Golden Bear is Hungarian writer-director...
German distributor Grandfilm is planning a release for the summer.
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique is to handle world rights on Maria Speth’s Berlinale competition entry, Mr Bachmann And His Class.
A German distributor, Grandfilm, is already on board and is looking to release the film theatrically this summer.
The documentary was produced by Speth through Berlin-based Madonnen Film, and co-written with Reinhold Vorschneider.
Mr Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique is to handle world rights on Maria Speth’s Berlinale competition entry, Mr Bachmann And His Class.
A German distributor, Grandfilm, is already on board and is looking to release the film theatrically this summer.
The documentary was produced by Speth through Berlin-based Madonnen Film, and co-written with Reinhold Vorschneider.
Mr Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
- 2/12/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
German distributor Grandfilm is planning a release for the summer.
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique is to handle world rights on Maria Speth’s Berlinale competition entry, Mr Bachmann And His Class.
A German distributor, Grandfilm, is already on board and is looking to release the film theatrically this summer.
The documentary was produced by Speth through Berlin-based Madonnen Film, and co-written with Reinhold Vorschneider.
Mr Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique is to handle world rights on Maria Speth’s Berlinale competition entry, Mr Bachmann And His Class.
A German distributor, Grandfilm, is already on board and is looking to release the film theatrically this summer.
The documentary was produced by Speth through Berlin-based Madonnen Film, and co-written with Reinhold Vorschneider.
Mr Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.
- 2/12/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Maren Ade named best director as female filmmakers flourish.
Toni Erdmann continued its triumphant run at the German Film Awards on Friday night, taking home six coveted Lola statuettes in an evening dominated by strong women filmmakers.
Maren Ade’s tragicomedy received the Golden Lola for Best Feature Film as well as double honours for Ade (pictured at left) herself as director and screenwriter, plus statuettes for her lead actors Sandra Hueller (pictured at right) and Peter Simonischek, and a Lola for the film’s editor Heike Parplies.
Handled internationally by The Match Factory, Toni Erdmann began winning the hearts of critics and audiences around the globe following its premiere in Cannes’ Official Competition last year.
It picked up five European Film Awards in Poland’s Wroclaw last December – in the same categories as the Lolas except for editing – as well as Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.
Hours before Friday night’s ceremony in Berlin, the film’s...
Toni Erdmann continued its triumphant run at the German Film Awards on Friday night, taking home six coveted Lola statuettes in an evening dominated by strong women filmmakers.
Maren Ade’s tragicomedy received the Golden Lola for Best Feature Film as well as double honours for Ade (pictured at left) herself as director and screenwriter, plus statuettes for her lead actors Sandra Hueller (pictured at right) and Peter Simonischek, and a Lola for the film’s editor Heike Parplies.
Handled internationally by The Match Factory, Toni Erdmann began winning the hearts of critics and audiences around the globe following its premiere in Cannes’ Official Competition last year.
It picked up five European Film Awards in Poland’s Wroclaw last December – in the same categories as the Lolas except for editing – as well as Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.
Hours before Friday night’s ceremony in Berlin, the film’s...
- 4/28/2017
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
If the artistic lovechild of Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard was raised in Germany and helped spawn the first wave of the Berlin School, it would be artist Angela Schanelec.
Opposite Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan, Schanelec would, after starting her film career making shorts in the early 1990’s, jump onto the world stage with her second feature, 1998’s Places In Cities. Becoming a mainstay on the world cinema scene, Schanelec is a relative unknown stateside.
However, that will hopefully change as more people begin seeing her latest and arguably greatest work, The Dreamed Path. A deeply moving yet almost bewilderingly quiet and mannered, Path is a diptych, introducing us to two couples, 30 years apart.
First we meet Theres and Kenneth, two attractive young people in the throes of love and a vacation in Greece. We watch as life itself begins weighing on each half of this relationship, with the...
Opposite Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan, Schanelec would, after starting her film career making shorts in the early 1990’s, jump onto the world stage with her second feature, 1998’s Places In Cities. Becoming a mainstay on the world cinema scene, Schanelec is a relative unknown stateside.
However, that will hopefully change as more people begin seeing her latest and arguably greatest work, The Dreamed Path. A deeply moving yet almost bewilderingly quiet and mannered, Path is a diptych, introducing us to two couples, 30 years apart.
First we meet Theres and Kenneth, two attractive young people in the throes of love and a vacation in Greece. We watch as life itself begins weighing on each half of this relationship, with the...
- 2/17/2017
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
As the ice flows thaw in the 24-hour daylight of a northern Norwegian summer, so too does the relationship of a father and son in Thomas Arslan’s Bright Nights, a consciously meditative but rather straightforward three-act road movie that takes just the bare minimum of plot points along for the ride. Combining an ambient use of imagery and music with a simple and sparse approach to dialogue, Arslan’s seventh feature as director might remind the viewer of the work of a small group of American independent filmmakers who broke out in the mid-to-late 2000s who were, at the time, collectively referred to as the neo-neo-realists by New York Times critic A.O. Scott. Indeed, you can see much of the work of Ramin Bahrani and Kelly Reichardt on display here, though, crucially, not their most profound gift as filmmakers: being able to divulge a great deal about a character...
- 2/13/2017
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Award Winning Director Wolfgang Becker (“Good Bye Lenin!”) will open the festival at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre with “Me and Kaminski” bringing outstanding German cinema and its stars to Los Angeles from October 20 to 23rd.
Full Program Line Up Announced with a selection of the best new German, Austrian and Swiss Cinema
Celebrating its 10th year, German Currents features an expanded program including screenings of ten La premieres, conversations with prolific German directors, writers and actors, as well as the return of the free family matinee film screening for local schools.
“Me and Kaminski” starring Daniel Brühl and directed by Wolfgang Becker
2016 has been a successful year for German language cinema, not only in Europe, but across the globe. Beginning on Thursday, October 20th 2016 German Currents will open this year’s 4 day festival with the red carpet event Los Angeles premiere of Wolfgang Becker’s (“Goodbye Lenin”) five-time...
Full Program Line Up Announced with a selection of the best new German, Austrian and Swiss Cinema
Celebrating its 10th year, German Currents features an expanded program including screenings of ten La premieres, conversations with prolific German directors, writers and actors, as well as the return of the free family matinee film screening for local schools.
“Me and Kaminski” starring Daniel Brühl and directed by Wolfgang Becker
2016 has been a successful year for German language cinema, not only in Europe, but across the globe. Beginning on Thursday, October 20th 2016 German Currents will open this year’s 4 day festival with the red carpet event Los Angeles premiere of Wolfgang Becker’s (“Goodbye Lenin”) five-time...
- 10/4/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
It’s love at first sight for Ania and a young handsome stranger lurking in the woods. Animal magnetism finds a new meaning in Wild, an intriguing, passionate drama between a woman and a wolf that falters only in that it doesn’t go quite far enough with its bestialistic premise.
For Ania (Lilith Stangenberg, utterly committed), life is drab, living in a monstrous high-rise apartment in an unnamed German city and working for a faceless city firm where the most interesting part of the day is making coffee for her misogynist boss Boris (Georg Fridrich).
But she’s awoken from her slumber when she stumbles upon a set of eyes in a park one evening, the figure of a full-grown wolf. It’s an interest that engulfs her entire world, starting with her placing bits of uncooked steak in the forest before she plots a trap to capture her unrequited lover.
For Ania (Lilith Stangenberg, utterly committed), life is drab, living in a monstrous high-rise apartment in an unnamed German city and working for a faceless city firm where the most interesting part of the day is making coffee for her misogynist boss Boris (Georg Fridrich).
But she’s awoken from her slumber when she stumbles upon a set of eyes in a park one evening, the figure of a full-grown wolf. It’s an interest that engulfs her entire world, starting with her placing bits of uncooked steak in the forest before she plots a trap to capture her unrequited lover.
- 2/8/2016
- by Ed Frankl
- The Film Stage
The incarcerated Ukrainian director has been named an honorary jury member at the forthcoming festival.
The San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 19-27) has unveiled the jury for its 62nd edition, which includes imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov.
The director, who has been involved in supporting the Euro Maidan protests in Kiev and has opposed the annexation of Crimea by Russia, was arrested on May 10 by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Fsb) in his house in Simferopol and brought to a Moscow prison where he is still detained and awaiting trial for “committing crimes of a terrorist nature”.
In July, the campaign to free the film-maker from detention in Russia was taken to the European Court of Human Rights (Echr). A Moscow court ruled that Sentsov should remain in prison until Oct 11 when a trial is due to be held.
To defend freedom of expression and on request by the European Film Academy (Efa), San...
The San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 19-27) has unveiled the jury for its 62nd edition, which includes imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov.
The director, who has been involved in supporting the Euro Maidan protests in Kiev and has opposed the annexation of Crimea by Russia, was arrested on May 10 by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Fsb) in his house in Simferopol and brought to a Moscow prison where he is still detained and awaiting trial for “committing crimes of a terrorist nature”.
In July, the campaign to free the film-maker from detention in Russia was taken to the European Court of Human Rights (Echr). A Moscow court ruled that Sentsov should remain in prison until Oct 11 when a trial is due to be held.
To defend freedom of expression and on request by the European Film Academy (Efa), San...
- 9/11/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule opening night reception at MoMA's Terrace 5 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and independent film critic Anke Leweke have organised The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule at MoMA, running from November 20 through December 06, 2013. Some of the filmmakers participating in this impressive program are Angela Schanelec with Orly and Mein langsames Leben (Passing Summer), Ulrich Köhler with Bungalow and Schlafkrankheit (Sleeping Sickness). Actor Nina Hoss will present with Christian Petzold, Barbara and Jerichow and with Thomas Arslan, Gold.
Arslan will also present two of his earlier films Geschwister (Brothers And Sisters) and Im Schatten (In The Shadows).
Also appearing in post-screening discussions are Benjamin Heisenberg with his cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider for Der Räuber (The Robber) and Christoph Hochhäusler, director of Falscher Bekenner (I Am Guilty...
Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and independent film critic Anke Leweke have organised The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule at MoMA, running from November 20 through December 06, 2013. Some of the filmmakers participating in this impressive program are Angela Schanelec with Orly and Mein langsames Leben (Passing Summer), Ulrich Köhler with Bungalow and Schlafkrankheit (Sleeping Sickness). Actor Nina Hoss will present with Christian Petzold, Barbara and Jerichow and with Thomas Arslan, Gold.
Arslan will also present two of his earlier films Geschwister (Brothers And Sisters) and Im Schatten (In The Shadows).
Also appearing in post-screening discussions are Benjamin Heisenberg with his cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider for Der Räuber (The Robber) and Christoph Hochhäusler, director of Falscher Bekenner (I Am Guilty...
- 11/21/2013
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
In one of those serendipitous quirks of scheduling that festival-going sometimes throws up, I saw what are currently my favourite male and females performances among 2010's new films in consecutive screenings on the final Saturday of the Viennale.
Attentive readers of this site will already be familiar with my enthusiasm for Mišel Matičević and his work in Thomas Arslan's In the Shadows(Im Schatten)—itself one of the year's most outstanding world-premieres—which I wrote about in my dispatches from the Berlinale back in February.
Over eight months later I had my second viewing of the picture, an absorbingly low-key, stripped down neo-noir that showcases the strengths of what's become known as the "Berlin School," built four-square around the very precise, very physical, largely wordless turn from Matičević ("stone-faced," according to Variety's enthusiastic belated review, published in the wake of the picture's early October screening at the Vancouver Film Festival.
Attentive readers of this site will already be familiar with my enthusiasm for Mišel Matičević and his work in Thomas Arslan's In the Shadows(Im Schatten)—itself one of the year's most outstanding world-premieres—which I wrote about in my dispatches from the Berlinale back in February.
Over eight months later I had my second viewing of the picture, an absorbingly low-key, stripped down neo-noir that showcases the strengths of what's become known as the "Berlin School," built four-square around the very precise, very physical, largely wordless turn from Matičević ("stone-faced," according to Variety's enthusiastic belated review, published in the wake of the picture's early October screening at the Vancouver Film Festival.
- 11/10/2010
- MUBI
Berlin -- Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" may have missed out on the best foreign film Oscar but the Austrian filmmaker is all but certain to sweep the German Film Awards after "The White Ribbon" received 13 nominations for the country's top prize, the Lolas.
"The White Ribbon" picked up Lola noms in all possible categories, including best film, best director and best acting noms for stars Burghart Klaussner and Susanne Lothar.
Cinematographer Christian Berger, whose stark black-and-white images earned him an Oscar nomination, is the favurite to win the Lola for best cinematography at the German Film Awards on April 23 in Berlin.
"When We Leave," a drama from first-time director Feo Aladag, was the big surprise, earning six Lola nominations including ones for best film and best actress for Sibel Kekilli ("Head-On") in her comeback role as a young woman banished from her devout Muslim family.
Hans-Christian Schmid's...
"The White Ribbon" picked up Lola noms in all possible categories, including best film, best director and best acting noms for stars Burghart Klaussner and Susanne Lothar.
Cinematographer Christian Berger, whose stark black-and-white images earned him an Oscar nomination, is the favurite to win the Lola for best cinematography at the German Film Awards on April 23 in Berlin.
"When We Leave," a drama from first-time director Feo Aladag, was the big surprise, earning six Lola nominations including ones for best film and best actress for Sibel Kekilli ("Head-On") in her comeback role as a young woman banished from her devout Muslim family.
Hans-Christian Schmid's...
- 3/19/2010
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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