12/10/2012 - Quality German and European films out this week in German cinemas

Warner released a much-awaited comedy by Marc Rothemund (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) in German cinemas yesterday. Mann tut was Mann kann [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (photo - lit. "One does what one can") is an adaptation of Hans Rath’s novel of the same name, produced by the great distribution company NFP, whose screenplay was co-written by the novelist and Rothemund. Its main character is a bachelor (played by fashionable actor Wotan Wilke Möhring, from Men in the City [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) who finds out that the woman of his dreams (Jasmin Gerat, from Kokowääh) is about to marry someone else. He tries to prevent this at all costs, all the while giving relationship advice to two friends, one who is too fickle and one who is too shy.

Farbfilm is releasing Wolfgang Dinslage’s version of a letter to Elise. Für Elise [+see also:
trailer
interview: Saskia Rosendahl
film profile], a film produced by the Weimar-based ostlicht filmproduktion, depicts the life of a 15-year-old girl who, after her father dies in an accident, lives alone with her mother, an alcoholic nurse, and whose only comfort is playing the piano. When she meets Ludwig, he seems to her to be the ideal partner, but his wife thinks the same thing.

StudioCanal is offering the German public the chance to see Julian Roman Pölsler’s The Wall, an Austrian-German co-production by Coop99 and Starhaus Filmproduktion that was selected for the last Berlinale. This adaptation of Austrian novelist Marlen Haushofer's bestseller stars Martina Gedeck as a woman who finds herself walled up in a forest, alone with a dog, a cat, and a cow.

Arsenal Institut has released Beziehungsweisen, a docu-fiction written, directed, and produced by Calle Overweg in which three imaginary couples consult a real therapist, while One Fine Day Films has distributed a film it produced, Nairobi Half Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a German-Kenyan title directed by David Tosh Gitonga about a young actor who dreams of making a career for himself in the Kenyan capital. The film was notably produced by film director Tom Tykwer and is Kenya's submission for a 2013 Oscar.

Finally, Olivier Megaton’s French blockbuster Taken 2 is distributed by Universum, RémiBezancon and Jean-Christophe Lie’s Franco-Belgian animation film Zarafa has been released by Alamode, and Olivier Horlait’s Franco-Greek co-production Nicostratos le pélican, starring Emir Kusturica, is also out thanks to Neue Visionen.

(Translated from French)