Film Archive

Jerichow

Off the beaten path of life, three people stumble into a fateful encounter. Thomas, young and strong, has been dishonorably discharged from the army. Ali, an affable Turkish businessman, has seen some hard times but now his primary concern is making sure the employees of his snack-bars don’t cheat on him. Laura, an attractive woman with a dark past, seems to find refuge in the shadows of her marriage to Ali.

Thomas, Ali, and Laura keep an eye on each other and keep their secrets to themselves. They want love but also security. They consider themselves independent, and what they desire can only be achieved by betrayal.

Jerichow is a love-triangle in which yearning evaporates into even bigger dreams. This drama unfolds on the country roads in desolate northeast Germany, where thick forests suddenly end on cliffs overlooking the Baltic Sea. The story is a classic cinematic constellation but with a daring new interpretation: caught between guilt and freedom, between passion and reason, there are wishes whose fulfillment can only mean escape.

Christian Petzold is one of the leading directors of recent German cinema. The German Film Critics Association has twice awarded him Best Film awards, for Ghosts (Gespenster, 2005) and The State I Am In (Die Innere Sicherheit, 2000). He was twice named Best Director at the German Film Awards, for Wolfsburg (2002) and The State I Am In, which also won Best Screenplay at Thessaloniki and the Grand Prize at Valenciennes. Petzold has also received much acclaim for his other films, including: Something to Remind Me (Toter Mann, 2002), Die Beischlafdiebin (1998), Cuba Libre (1995), Yella (2007), and Jerichow (2008) which also screened in Competition in Venice. Born in 1960, Petzold studied German and Theater Studies at the Free University in Berlin, then graduated from the German Film & Television Academy (dffb) in 1994.
 

Genre Drama
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2008
Director Christian Petzold
Screenplay Christian Petzold
Director of Photography Hans Fromm
Editor Bettina Boehler
Music by Stefan Will
Production Design K.D. Gruber
Producers Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber
Production Company Schramm Film Koerner + Weber/Berlin, in co-production with BR/Munich, ARTE/Strasbourg
Principal Cast Benno Fuermann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Soezer
Casting Simone Bär
Length 93 min, 2,545 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Original Version German
Subtitled Versions English
Sound Technology Dolby Digital, Dolby SR
Festival Screenings Venice 2008 (In Competition), Toronto 2008, Rotterdam 2009, BAFICI Buenos Aires 2009, Edinburgh 2009, Shanghai 2009, Rio 2009, Warsaw 2009, Sevilla 2009, Kerala 2009, Sofia 2010
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), BKM, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
German Distributor Piffl Medien/Berlin

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