30/04/2010

On German and Austrian screens this week, Tobis is launching master filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore’s latest work Baaria [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which recounts the dreams and disillusions of a Sicilian family over three generations. Set to a score by Ennio Morricone, the film opened last year’s Venice Film Festival, in avant-premiere.

German audiences will also get the chance to discover two local documentaries. First up is Auf Der Anderen Seite Der Leinwand, in which journalist Bernd Sobolla pays homage to the Moviemento Cinema in Berlin’s Kreuzberg area, which has survived 100 years through historical upheaval and changes in the art of film. It is distributed by BV kommunale Filmarbeit.

The second is Lukas Schmid and Corinna Wichmann’s Auf der Sicheren Seite, about the residential areas protected by fences ("gated communities") on three continents. It is distributed by RealFiction.

The line-up of new European releases is completed by three German co-productions: Lithuanian director Ignas Miškinis’s Low Lights [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (distributed by 3L); Irene Langemann’s musical documentary Die Konkurrenten – Russlands Wunderkinder 2 (distributed by GMfilms); and Uwe Boll’s German/Canadian title Rampage, which centres on a youngster who leads a stifling life until he decides, one Sunday, to massacre the inhabitants of his town (distribution: Splendid).

In Austria, Sony Pictures is launching French director Jacques Audiard’s widely acclaimed A Prophet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jacques Audiard
interview: Jacques Audiard and Tahar R…
film profile], while Poool Filmverleih is releasing Pipilotti Rist’s upbeat and fantastical Austrian/Swiss film Pepperminta [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Finally, Filmladen is distributing Jacob Thuesen’s documentary The Early Years: Erik Nietzsche Part 1, which was written by Lars von Trier.

(Translated from French)