There is always great strength in the selected films for the annual German Film Festival, mostly from Germany itself, some from Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. There is also the annual selection for younger audiences, Kino for Children. From 30 April – 28 May.
RIEFENSTAHL. Audiences interested in the German film industry but, especially for those who respond to the name of the 1930s director, Leni Riefenstahl, this documentary is a central festival attraction. She became famous in the mid 1930s as a propagandist for the Third Reich, her association with Hitler and filming the vast Nuremberg rally of 1934, Triumph of the Will, as well the Berlin Olympiad, 1936.
The documentary is filled with excerpts from her films, comments about her technique, camera placement, the vastness of the sets filled with Nazi enthusiasts, troops, her sitting in the editing box and defining the look and tone of her films. Evident is the awareness of racial superiority in the focusing on the Aryan German people, the superior bodies of the athletes at the Olympics (including US African-American Jesse Owens). Riefenstahl provides significant resources for appreciating these films.
However, there is also the issue of her Nazi sympathies, relationship with Goebbels, Hitler, the production of her films, the screenings, the repercussions. Riefenstahl in fact, born 1902, died in 2001, almost 70 years after her films, often embroiled in discussions, arguments about her political affiliations, sympathies, this film drawing on documentaries about her, quite a number of excerpts from television interviews, harsh questions, condemnations, her self-defence.
LONG STORY SHORT. The opening film for the festival was the lightly serious Long . . . Story . . . Short. Its appeal is to audiences in their 30s and 40s, especially their 40s like the main protagonists here, a circle of friends from way back, their meeting on New Year’s Eve, 2019, the experience of Covid, relationships, betrayals, through 2021 to a culmination in 2023. The framework of the screenplay is a number of celebrations, birthdays, marriages, funerals. Response will depend on identification with each of the characters, sympathetic with the teacher and his fiancee, or puzzles and alienation from most of the others in the group, deception and affairs, marriage breakups, children, a lesbian relationship and adoption of children . . . While the issues are serious, there are treated with a light, often comic touch.
TWO FOR ONE. And, speaking of comic, Two for One, is entertaining as it takes audiences back into the history of East Germany, the Berlin Wall coming down, 1990 and the ambiguous status of East Germany before unification. Audiences will remember Goodbye, Lenin, which has an episode about East German buried cash and some exploitation during unification. This film amplifies that story, a local community in a building discovering mountains of dumped cash, skills in exploiting it, the authorities eventually clamping down. But, the screenplay highlights the oppression of East Germans, their hard work and industry exploited by the authorities, the population lied to. The film raises all kinds of serious reflections on East Germany but throughout the film, there is humour in the characters and their relationships.
HYSTERIA. A different kind of thriller, the making of a film in the 21st-century by a group interested in migration issues and Muslims coming to Germany. Audiences might be tempted to become a bit hysterical as they watch the aftermath of a scene where a copy of the Quran is burnt, those involved becoming intense about what happened, responsibility, the director and producer, the focus on the young assistant, the actors who were amateurs coming from a local migrant centre, a taxi driver. Ultimately, each of the characters has their version of what happened, blame, and the audience having to decide, if they can, what really happened with each of the characters and who was responsible.
German Film Festival dates
Canberra, 30 April-21 May
Sydney, 1-21 May
Melbourne, Ballarat, 2-21 May
Brisbane, 7-28 May
Adelaide, 7-28 May
Perth, Byron Bay, 8-28 May