German Cinema Melbourne

A dark room, a huge screen, comfortable seats, rising tension, delicious popcorn and an amazing movie, who doesn’t love the cinema?! I love it and even more if the movies are German specialties, handpicked to provide an insight into the current German cinematic, cultural and societal landscape. Can anybody guess what I am talking about? Exactly, the German Cinema Melbourne!

We have enjoyed the German Film Festival for years, and now the German Cinema Melbourne continues this wonderful tradition. They offer a snapshot of different genres by screening ten new films (all produced in 2016/2017) and one restored classic film. Starting on the 17th till the 25th November 2017 at Backlot Studios in Southbank, Melbourne. To get a first sneak peek at what I am talking about, you can watch the movie “Freistatt” on September 27 at Backlot Studios or the movie “StadtLandLiebe” on September 30 at the German Tivoli Club. For more information, just have a look at our calendar or visit the website of German Cinema Melbourne.

The festival team, Peter Krausz, Irina Herrschner, Marko Gebel, Daniela Müller and Dr Claudia Sandberg, aim to provide a cinematic experience that ties German culture and German cinema together, providing the audiences a window into current societal, cultural and cinematic developments in Germany.With their expertise, they selected deep, funny, challenging, interesting and typical German movies. The choice of movies includes historical documentations, suspenseful action, dramatic family secrets, true story based movies, funny confrontations with the German immigration politic and much more. You don’t want to miss this.

“Nothing is black or white, there is a little bit of grey in everything”. “A German life”, is a story about a young girl in Nazi Germany who has Jewish friends and then finds herself working as a secretary to Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels. The opening movie is based off a true story and told by Brunhilde Pomsel, who shares and faces her past. This movie will show you how easily you can get caught in situations where you have to decide what your moral standards are and it will leave you with the question: “How would you react if you were caught up in difficult historic or social circumstances; how would you live your life?”

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After this incredible deep start, there will also be some comedy. A funny movie with a serious background. With the many refugees in mind who recently arrived in Germany, the movie “Willkommen bei den Hartmanns” will give you a deeper look not only at how some people deal with this new situation but also at how a family struggles in a time of modern media and workaholics. A retired couple decides to let a refugee live with them and is experiencing a completely new culture and a different way of life. While the “Hartmanns” try to explain German values to their new family member, they have to deal with their own problems: A son who seems to forget his own family because of his career and a daughter who always seems to find the wrong men, a husband who would like to be 40 years younger and a wife who tries to define her role as a woman. What can I say? We will have a lot of reasons to laugh until we cry. Funny jokes, good actors and absurd misunderstandings will make you fall in love with the family “Hartmann” and it also allows you to think about the many approaches to integration and the different reactions to this current topic, which is now more important than ever.

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For the end of the first German Cinema Melbourne the team decides to show a rediscovered Lang classic: “Der müde Tod/Destiny”.This will be the last movie on the screens of this year German Cinema Melbourne. The film serves as a striking morality tale about the disappearance of a man and the desperate measures his fiancée takes to save him from death. Death leads the man’s fiancée through three exotic located stories in order for her to discover how she can save her lover from the inevitable fate. Even Hitchcock has commented that this film inspired him. Seems to be a rare opportunity. Don’t miss it.

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To visit the Website of “German Cinema Melbourne” click here: https://germancinemamelbourne.com/