New and classic movies part of German Film Festival
The German Film Fesitval is on again, with more than 20 films across several genres to delight and entertain audiences.
Showcasing the best contemporary German cinema direct from the major festivals in Europe, the German Film Festival is now showing at cinemas across Australia.
The Festival, which is presented by cultural partner the Goethe-Institut, features 26 movies across a broad spectrum of genres, including 21 Australian premieres.
This includes A Stasi Comedy about a man’s double life as an underground poet and a Stasi agent in East Berlin in the 1980s which comes back to haunt him 30 years later. It also features comedies Contra about a law student preparing for a debate competition alongside a professor who has been shunned due to a viral video of him insulting a student, and It’s Just a Phase, Honey which is based on the best-selling book by the same name and follows a couple approaching their 50s who set out to regain their long-lost youth.
Of course, there’s drama galore as well, with My Son – an emotional drama about a young man and his mother who go on a journey together after nearly losing one another – and The Last Execution, which portrays an ambitious scientist who is convinced to work for the GDR’s Stasi in 1981 East Berlin but is soon accused of espionage.
One film to note is The Forger, which follows the true story of Samson “Cioma” Schönhaus, played by rising star Louis Hofmann, known for his role in Netflix’s supernatural series, Dark and the Oscar-nominated Land of Mine.
Cioma is a Jewish graphic artist who hid in plain sight in 1940s Berlin, moving freely about the city using fake documents, while secretly forging IDs to help hundreds of others. He throws himself into the city’s nightlife with his friends Det and Gerda, and even catches a fragile glimpse of love in seemingly hopeless times, using the identity of a marine officer that Cioma created for himself.
The film, which is based on Schönhaus’ novel of the same name, shows Cioma forging IDs with merely a brush and some ink as his tools. But the more lives the trio saves, the more the noose tightens around them, and soon Cioma realises that his only hope of survival is a final forged document – his own.
In a statement, screenwriter Maggie Peren said Cioma’s tale is “the story of a person who rebels against stigmatisation. The regime of terror is present, but we do not offer the Nazis a platform. We see them through Cioma’s eyes as we see everything through his eyes.
“The most difficult thing for me as a director was to do justice to the lightness of the novel, and at the same time tell how [in Schönhaus’ book] people hate Jews as a matter of course [while] thinking that they are friendly and nice after all. It was important to me to raise awareness that racism doesn’t come out of nowhere. The roots go deep into our society and Cioma’s story in its enormous lightness has nevertheless – or just because of it – the power to trace the depth of the roots.”
The film was selected for the Berlin International Film Festival 2022.
The German Film Festival also includes a section just for kids, titled Kino for Kids, and a selection of films from German-speaking neighbours including Austria and Switzerland.
The German Film Festival runs throughout May and June. For more information, visit germanfilmfestival.com.au
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