News Releases

12th Festival of German Films in Madrid: a seemingly neverending rush of visitors

2010-06-16

The 12th Festival of German Films in Madrid, which took place from June 1 to 5, registered over 5,000 admissions again this year. A total of seven new feature films, two documentaries, a TV film and numerous shorts will be presented in the festival cinema „Cine Palafox“. In addition, the program was rounded off with a retrospective of the filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier and the screening of the Director’s Cut of Volker Schlöndorff’s THE TIN DRUM (DIE BLECHTROMMEL).

NANGA PARBAT opened the festival on the evening of June 1 in the presence of the director Joseph Vilsmaier and the extreme mountaineer Reinhold Messner in the Cine Palafox. The cinema with seating for 850 was sold out, and the audience gave an enthusiastic response to the film portrait of the tragic first ascent of the Rupal Wall on Nanga Parbat in 1970 by brothers Reinhold and Guenther Messner.

The festival featured several other events such as the special screening and panel of NANGA PARBAT in the Desnivel bookshop/publishing house, which has specialised on mountaineering and travel literature, and the roundtable discussion in the cinema with Joseph Vilsmaier and Spanish filmmakers who have specialized in mountaineering films.
The directors Kaspar Heidelbach, BERLIN ’36, Susanne Schneider, THE DAY WILL COME (ES KOMMT DER TAG), Alain Gsponer, MY WORDS, MY LIES – MY LOVE (LILA LILA), Markus Goller, FRIENDSHIP!, and the producers Sabine Holtgreve, RUN IF YOU CAN (RENN, WENN DU KANNST) and THE DAY WILL COME, travelled to Madrid to present their films in person to the audience and Spanish press. CEASEFIRE (WAFFENSTILLSTAND) by Lancelot von Naso was also shown as part of the festival. The Audience Award went to FRIENDSHIP! by Markus Goller.

The festival program also included Nina Grosse presenting her TV film DER VERLORENE SOHN and two documentaries from the world of dance showing two different stagings of Pina Bausch’s piece „Kontakthof“: DAMEN UND HERREN AB 65 by Lilo Mangelsdorff and DANCING DREAMS (TANZTRAEUME) by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann.
The younger audience had no less than two new youth films to catch this year: THE CROCODILES and THE CROCODILES 2 (VORSTADTKROKODILE and VORSTADTKROKODILE 2) by Christian Ditter in a “double feature” presentation.

The main program was enriched by a large selection of short films: GERMANIA WURST by Volker Schlecht, TERMINAL by Joerg Wagner, BETTY B. & THE THE’S by Felix Stienz and EGO SUM ALPHA ET OMEGA by Jan-Peter Meier. Moreover, two reels of shorts were part of the festival program: the reel without any dialogue for children aged four and above and German Films’ presentation of NEXT GENERATION 2010 (supported by Kodak) with films by students from German film academies. As the representatives of the 2010 lineup of short filmmakers, director Xenia Lesniewski, EGODYSTON, and director of photography Paola Calvo Picado, GELIEBTE, came to Madrid for the Q&As with the audiences.

The retrospective of the filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier featured four of the filmmaker’s most well-known works: AUTUMN MILK (HERBSTMILCH), THE LAST TRAIN (DER LETZTE ZUG), COMEDIAN HARMONISTS and STALINGRAD.

The Spaniards‘ strong interest in German cinema was evident once more at the annual dinner hosted by German Films for Spanish distributors and German sales companies.

The event’s partners are: Lufthansa, Fundación Goethe, the German Embassy in Madrid, the Goethe-Institut in Madrid, Kodak, Radeberger, AG Kurzfilm, AG Dok und Tapanco. The prizes in kind for the Audience Award were donated by Kodak and Avalon Productions.

Further information on the festival can be obtained at www.cine-aleman.com or from Barbie Heusinge, Email: Heusinger@german-film