Film Archive

Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin - From Schoenhauser Allee to Hollywood (Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin - Von der Schoenhauser Allee nach Hollywood)

From his early successes in silent German films such as The Oyster Princess and Madame Dubarry to his mature Hollywood masterpieces (Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner), the films of Ernst Lubitsch have had a lasting impact upon the cinema of Europe and America.

In Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin, the first-ever feature documentary on the inventor of the "Lubitsch Touch", tells the story of how the son of a Jewish tailor first came into contact with the theater while still attending school. In 1911 Lubitsch joined Max Reinhardt's ensemble, and as of 1913 he started performing in film comedies. His immense popularity enabled him to take up directing.

In Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin, it is Lubitsch's daughter Nicola who guides us through her father's exciting time in Germany, supported by an illustrious group of film historians, Lubitsch experts and some of today's most influential German film directors. Rare film clips, newly discovered photographs, newsreel footage and original audio recordings with actress Henny Porten, other first-hand witnesses and Lubitsch himself round off this comprehensive portrait of one of cinema's few true geniuses.

Robert Fischer was born 1954 in Greven/Westphalia. He started writing about film in the mid-1970s and soon became one of Germany's foremost film historians. For his translations of Truffaut's complete writings into German, he was named Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French Cultural Minister Jack Lang. Together with Joe Hembus he wrote a history of the New German Cinema. He is also a programmer for the Munich International Film Festival. After five-years as Vice Director at the Munich Film Museum, where he was involved in the reconstruction of Orson Welles’ unfinished films, he switched to filmmaking in 1999. His films include: Strange Behavior of Moving Pictures (short, 1978), Monsieur Truffaut Meets Mr. Hitchcock (1999), Never Stop Beginning – Ufa Star Carola Hoehn (2000), Film is Truth: Milos Forman (2000), Fassbinder in Hollywood (2002), Dalton Trumbo: Rebel in Hollywood, and Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin (2006).
 

Genre Biopic
Category Documentary Cinema
Year of Production 2006
Director Robert Fischer
Directors of Photography Michael Ruediger, Manuel Lommel, Jonathan Rho
Editor Frank Schoenfelder
Music by Aljoscha Zimmermann, Sabrina Hausmann
Producer Loy W. Arnold
Production Company Transit Film/Munich
Principal Cast Nicola Lubitsch, Tom Tykwer, Michael Hanisch, Hans Helmut Prinzler, Enno Patalas, Jan-Christopher Horak, Wolfgang Becker, Dani Levy, Amanda Goodpaster, Evy Bettelheim-Bentley, Joerg Jannings, Henny Porten, Ernst Lubitsch
Length 110 min
Format color, b&w, HD, 16:9
Original Version German/English
Subtitled Versions English, German, Spanish
Sound Technology Dolby Digital 2.0
Festival Screenings San Sebastian 2006

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