13/01/2006

With their strongly punctuated titles, Hab mich Lieb! ('love me!'), by Sylke Enders, and War'n Sie schon mal in mich verliebt? (t.i. Did You Ever Fall in Love With Me?), by Douglas Wolfsperger, sound like a loud cry of despair meant to bring German spectators back to the movies. The former film, by Sylke Enders (whose first feature, Kroko, got the Silver Bundesfilmpreis in 2003), describes the friendship between a highly-strung and domineering medical student (Franziska Jünger) and a rather meek transsexual (Torsten Schwick), a hierarchy the arrival of Norman (Lennie Burmeister) is about to disrupt. This Alfredfilms production is distributed by Basis. War'n Sie schon mal in mich verliebt? is a documentary on Max Hansen, Jewish cabaret comedian , film producer and womanizer of the 20's and 30's whose great popularity under the Weimar Republic has left no traces today, for his irreverence (the title chosen by Douglas Wolfsperger was taken from a song in which Hansen describes Hitler as a closet homosexual) led to his exile from the stage and from his country. This documentary produced by Icon Film is handled by the distributor GMfilms.

Amongst the three German co-productions on the programme this week, there is the well-awaited Gabrielle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], by Patrice Chéreau. This French, Italian and German movie in competition last year in Venice is a Concorde release. To contrast with this period movie describing the Parisian upper-class a Century ago, the Hamburg-based distributor KurzFilmAgentur launches Lost and Found – Six Glances at a Generation, a series of short films produced by Icon Film in co-production with seven Eastern European countries (including Romania, Bulgaria, countries of ex-Yugoslavia...). One of the six directors involved is the Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, whose innovative film Johanna [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was presented last year in Cannes, which indicates that the interest of this cinematic mosaic is not only geographical but also artistic. Finally, the young public will enjoy the adventures of Erik in Insectland (o.t. Erik of het klein insectenboek), animation film adapted from the best-seller by Godfried Bomans and co-produced by the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany —where the film is distributed by Atlas intermedia.

The other newly-released European films are The Constant Gardener [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Fernando Meirelles (distr. Kinowelt), Dark Horse [+see also:
trailer
film profile], an Islandic and Danish comedy directed by Dagur Káris (Nói Albinói) and distributed by Neue Visionen, and the British documentary George Michael, a Different Story by Southan Morris (distr. Academy Films).

(Translated from French)