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Retrospective German Stories
Apart from film classics and some great modern-day authors, German cinema is not one of the best known to the French public. In its history—which, as must be remembered, was literally “cut in two” for over forty years—the documentary accompanied, or even represented, its most innovative side. It reveals the importance of the “essay” form, the power of direct cinema as seen in Berlin or Hamburg, the wonderful transgressions of accepted “genres”, the taste for experimentation and long-term film projects, a critical view of representation (and cinema) and a thoughtful, politically engaged approach to History.
This retrospective does not claim either to represent this cinema or be a “best of”.
It attempts to recount moments in German documentary film, to highlight some main lines and to identify some of the links with the overall history of film and with a German cinema that is today revealing all its energetic creativity, thanks to the French initiatives of the Goethe Institute, the Festival of German Films and the Paris/Berlin International Meetings.
These “stories” return to the years of the New German Cinema and the filmic expressions of the 70s, which were marked by the jolts of German society. They also chart moments in the paths of filmmakers from the former GDR, so as to measure the persistence and development of styles, before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They recount the fruitful "beginnings", whose results, developments and influences we now see.
It is perhaps in this way that the retrospective is in tune with the 30th anniversary of the Bibiliothèque publique d’information and the Centre Pompidou.
German Stories 2007 include tributes to Alexander Kluge, Peter Nestler and Romuald Karmakar: two authors that have played a key role in the 1960s renewal of German film, and a young author who has taken on the aesthetic and productive independence of his elders. A few stories then, told with the help of seldom seen films by Volker Koepp, Jürgen Böttcher, Elfi Mikesch, Hartmut Bitomsky, Harun Farocki, Helke Sander… and others. And the pleasure of revisiting some long absent films, like The Parallel Road by Ferdinand Khittl, Description of an Island by Rudolf Thome, The Hamburg Uprising by Klaus Wildenhahn, Gisela Tuchtenhagen and Reiner Etz…
The festival is delighted to welcome Alexander Kluge, Peter Nestler, Hartmut Bitomsky, Klaus Wildenhahn, Gisela Tuchtenhagen, Harun Farocki, Elfi Mikesch, Helga Reidemeister, Volker Koepp, Gerd Kroske, Romuald Karmakar and Karin Jurschick.
Programme designed by Bernard Eisenschitz and Marie-Pierre Duhamel-Muller with advice from: Werner Dütsch, Werner Ruzicka, Antje Ehmann, Harun Farocki, Jürgen Ellinghaus, and information from filmmakers, film critics and festival directors.
In partnership with the Goethe Institut, Les 3 Luxembourg, MK2 Beaubourg and with support from Defa-Stiftung, German Films, ARTE.