25/04/2013 - The independent sidebars of the Cannes FF have selected a few German co-productions focused on the blurry borders between fiction and reality

The independent sidebars of the 66th Cannes International Film Festival (15 – 26 May, 2013), namely the Critics' Week and the Directors' Fortnight, have unveiled their programmes. The former will present a German short and a German co-production, the latter will screen Ari Folman's The Congress [+see also:
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The Congress, based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, combines live-action and animated scenes to tell the story of an actress who sells her digital personal rights to a powerful media concern intent on implanting films directly into people's heads which plans to create a digital version of her, putting her contractually out of business. This vast Euro-Israeli co-production stars John Hamm and Robin Wright, amongst others.

The Critics' Week will screen the Indian-German-French feature The Lunchbox (photo) by Ritesh Batra (German co-producer is Rohfilm), in which an incorrect delivery from Mumbai's lunchbox delivery system brings a young housewife together with an old man. Through the notes they leave in the lunchbox, they build an imaginary world, which is gradually in danger of taking over their reality. Also in the programme, the world premiere of the German short Come and Play by  Daria Belova (from the Berlin film school DFFB), about a Russian-German boy who finds a toy gun and starts confusing reality and imagination, past and present.

The Écrans Juniors/Cannes Cinéphiles sidebar includes Friederike Jehn's first feature, Summer Outside, co-produced by Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion with Swiss partners.

At the film market, German Films will be presenting a total of 30 new German films to professional delegates. For the 13th year in a row, it will also run the German Pavilion in the International Village, together with Focus Germany, which unites seven major regional film funds.