Audi Festival of German Films 2015: Sydney Opening
Under the hood of Johanna Wokalek Pope Joan is an early German cinema renaissance.
The German Film Festival in Sydney shows the resurrection of the country's film industry.
Can you imagine an Australian director, based here, who would enjoy a career like this It starts with three films in three years, the theater covering and comedy, a breakthrough hit fourth film about a confused deceiver and a satire attached to a university and an anthology about a notorious red light district, a period melodrama inspiration of a father and his son, a documentary about a football team and now a historical epic on the legend of a 9th century female pope.
But this, very wide, is the CV of Sonke Wortmann, one of the greatest filmmakers of Germany and now a guest at the German Film Festival, which takes several Sydney cinemas from Wednesday 2 May.
They are really diverse films, accept Wortmann, speaking from his home in Düsseldorf.
To go a little documentary on the football team to a historical drama is very diverse, and do something different gives you new skills.
The modest, affable 50, is emblematic of the modern German film industry, which has transformed over the last 20 years that once the market share of German films in their country of origin was broken only 5 percent it is now a healthy 25 percent, thanks to directors such as Tom Tykwer Run Lola Run, Oliver Hirschbiegel Downfall, Dennis Gansel the Wave, Wortmann and many others.
The history of German film is marked by a period when the Germans made arty things, who has not won any public interest It was a film festival movement, Wortmann told German public now includes German films because they're more accessible and they take seriously the public, we are comedies, dramas, auteur films - it's true cinema industry today.
Wortmann's last film, Pope Joan, is the most ambitious Adapted from Donna Woolfolk Cross 1996 bestseller, it recreates the life of a young woman who in the 9th century Europe, have taken on the identity of his brother and rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church to become Pope with immaculate detail, Wortmann and his department heads flesh out a myth that has been written about for nearly 800 years.
One of the most striking features of the recent German cinema was the depth of the female players with Wortmann put the title role in Johanna Wokalek, which was electric as terrorist in 2008 for The Baader Meinhof Complex.
Either you are a good player or you're not, she says Wortmann is certainly one reason it is a mixture of talent and ability to really get into character.
In the Baader Meinhof complex it s average expressive, strong, enthusiastic, angry With this character, it's disguises all the time, then it must hold on his emotions, which is not easy The essential thing is that we, it is disagree play a man is a man - the way it looks, the way she walks, the way she talks.
Opposite Wokalek is an American John Goodman, a Scotsman Iain Glen and David latter Australian Wenham plays the only man who turns Jeanne's appeal, with Wortmann cast Wenham after enjoying his best performances in Australia, like the boys and the proposal it's brilliant actor and when you play the male hero, you have to look like a male hero, and he does it - especially with long hair, said Wortmann.
Wortmann has always loved movies, but never thought it would change her life that I had low expectations and they were exceeded by a large amount.
Gravity Maximilian Erlenwein 2009 provocative psychological thriller from director Maximilian Erlenwein first on the relationship between a former prison inmate and a bank employee traumatized Cinema Chauvel, Saturday, April 24 9 15pm; Palace Norton Street, Thursday, April 22, 8 am 45.
Maybe, maybe not Sonke Wortmann 1994 A sexual farce of a seducer Til Schweiger who finds himself caught between the different communities after his girlfriend leaves him Chauvel Cinema, Wednesday, April 28, 6: 30 pm; Friday, April 30, 4: 30 pm.
Soul Kitchen Fatih Akin's 2009 comedy Hamburg tough, funny the Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, a guest of the festival, the new leader in a former restaurant Palace Norton Street, Sunday, April 25, 15 pm; Cinema Chauvel, Monday, April 26, 18 pm; Sunday, May 2, 2: 30 pm.
The White Ribbon Michael Haneke's 2009 magisterial new drama on the oppression and cultural destruction that exceeds a German village before World War Palace Norton Street, Saturday, April 24, 21 pm; Cinema Chauvel, Sunday, April 25 6 hours 30; Monday, April 26, 15 pm; Friday, April 30, 8 am 45.
The German Film Festival is until Sunday, May 2 Palace Norton Street Cinema and Chauvel tickets through ticketing sites or 1300 306 776.
Pope Joan MA screens Wednesday at 8 pm 30 Chauvel; and Sunday, May 2 to 17 hours Palace.
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