12/09/2008

German audiences can this week enjoy a varied selection of new films, including five local (co-)productions. First on the menu is a typical dish served up by distributor Schwarz-Weiss: Ulla Wagner’s The Invention of the Curried Sausage.

The film – co-produced by Cologne-based Tag/Traum Filmproduktion and Berlin’s Känguruh-Film – is set towards the end of WWII. The story traces the encounter between Lena, a 47-year-old woman whose husband and children have left home, and a young army officer. They start a passionate affair in the apartment which becomes their island and Lena goes so far as to hide from her lover that the war is over, in order to prevent him from leaving.

Ventura are releasing Niko von Glasow-Brücher’s documentary Nobody's Perfect, which recounts the lives of people born with serious deformities caused by a drug taken by their mothers. The film also looks at the experiment which involved setting out a timetable for making peace with their bodies.

Virtual Experience are launching Christina Kinne’s Delusion 3D.

Also hitting screens is German co-production Silent Resident by Austrian director Christian Frosch, starring former Shooting Star Johanna Wokalek (Barefoot [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). The film explores an urban dystopia in an imaginary totalitarian future where everything and everyone are under surveillance, to the extent that people no longer know what is true or false.

The title – co-produced by Vienna-based Amour Fou, Germany’s Mediopolis and Weltfilm (Frosch’s company), Luxembourg’s Minotaurus and Hungary’s Eurofilm-Studio – is being released by Neue Visionen.

Meanwhile, Farbfilm are launching German/Swiss documentary Dance For All by Viviane Blumenschein and Elena Bromund.

Also on this week’s line-up is Matteo Garrone’s Italian film Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile], about the Neapolitan Camorra, which has attracted a lot of attention since winning the Grand Jury Prize at the latest Cannes Film Festival (distributed by Prokino). The film is also being released in Austria by Polyfilm.

Freunde d. dt. Kinemathek are launching Swiss title I Was a Swiss Banker [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Thomas Imbach. The film centres on a fraudulent banker who is on the run in the bucolic countryside, grappling with a witch and love.

This week’s final European release is French/US co-production Babylon A.D. [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Mathieu Kassovitz, which is being launched by Concorde in German and Austrian theatres.

(Translated from French)