KINO! 2011: New Cinema from Germany

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 29 April 2011 22:47

Written by Laura Blum

From the packed screenings at KINO! 2011, the Museum of Modern Art´s 32nd annual palooza of recent German cinema, you´d never know the Tribeca Film Festival was in full swing. The series, which brings a taste of the Teutonic to Midtown Manhattan (April 27 to May 2), is as happening as the German economy.

KINO! opened this year with Tom Tykwer’s latest work, Three. The trinity of the title is a married couple and the man both partners have a secret dalliance with. Perhaps best known for his propulsive 1998 hit Run Lola Run, Tykwer was unsure the sexy humor that made this 2010 seriocomedy such a hit back home would travel well. Pronouncing its New York premiere a “test screening” from which he´d forecast its potential stateside fortunes, the jaunty 40-something director returned alter the credits to entertain a lively Q&A, reassured by the near constant supply of audience guffaws during the preceding 119 minutes.

Another film bowing for the first time in New York is How to Make a Book with Steidl. Though it may sound like the cinematic equivalent of a Blutwurst factory tutorial, Gereon Wetzl and Jörg Adolph´s documentary about legenday designer/printer Gerhard Steidl -- publisher of such works as Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum and most of Karl Lagerfeld´s photography books -- rounds up creative lights from Robert Frank and Ed Ruscha to and Jeff Wall and Robert Adams, and manages the nifty trick of shrinking 88 minutes into 20. The film tracks the production of Joel Sternfeld’s iDubai photo book, taking us into the whir and wizardry of the manufacturing process, where the happily obsessive Steidl elves over the editing, design, typography, printing, marketing and distribution, and making us wish we too worked his seven-day week.

A third title worth highlighting is Florian Cossen´s debut film, The Day I Was Not Born. The 32-year-old filmmaker from a half a dozen countries -- including Argentina, where he studied film -- throws the spotlight on a German woman who recognizes a Spanish lullaby during a brief stopover in Buenos Aires, without the vaguest clue why.

In an off-screen query, it´s been speculated that Cossen took on Argentina´s "Dirty War" crimes as something of a sequel to The Official Story. Yet he clarified to Film Festival Traveler that Luis Puenzo´s 1985 Oscar winner "has nothing to do with our movie" beyond the common theme of disappeared people. Rather, Cossen stressed that hearing about family tragedies under Argentina´s military dictatorship gave him "very emotional" material to work with, especially "the idea that young people find out they were robbed and adopted without their knowledge into other families."

Domestic angst also rears up in The Weissensee Saga: A Berlin Love Story. The mini-series aired on ARD Germany in six 45-minute episodes, three of which are showing at MoMA. Set in East Berlin of the 1980s, this TV sensation directed by Friedmann Fromm is a Romeo and Juliet melodrama of two families, one who trucked with the Stasi secret police, and the other who preferred the dissident and cabaret crowd. The Weissensee Saga made ratings history in its reportedly dead-on portrayal of life behind the Berlin Wall.

What´s fueling the rise of the contemporary German screen? According to Laurence Kardish, senior curator at MoMA´s film department, "The films deal with social reality, and while they´re entertaining, they´re not simple entertainment." Moreover, he adds, "they´re fresh and original and very professional," an attractive mix for sophisticated audiences both here and in Germany who want YouTube veracity with Shakespearean complexity.

Kardish presents KINO! in cooperation with German Films (Munich), whose U.S. rep Oliver Mahrdt couldn´t be more thrilled with the MoMA lines.

His take on the series´growing success? "I´m just flabbergasted."

For more information, visit http://moma.org/visit/calendar/films 

KINO! 2011: New Films from Germany
April 27 - May 2, 2011

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019
212-708-9480

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