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Their meet cute was 2012 in Cannes. Diane Kruger — Hollywood star of Troy, National Treasure and Inglourious Basterds — was on the jury. German director Fatih Akin had a documentary screening at the festival. Kruger had been an Akin superfan ever since his breakout Head-On — a gritty, violent love story about a young German-Turkish woman trying to break free of her religious, restrictive family — which won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2004. “Fatih for me is the best German director we have, the most modern,” says Kruger, who was born and raised in Germany but began acting in French and then American movies. “I had to meet him, so I sort of invited myself to the afterparty for his film, where he was DJ-ing. I went up and said: ‘I’m a fan. If you ever have a role for me, it would be a dream to work together.’ ”

“I never forgot,” says Akin,...

The Playmaker has closed several distribution deals for the World War II drama “Never Alone,” directed by Klaus Härö.

“Never Alone” has been picked up for distribution in Bulgaria (Beta Film), India (BookMyShow), Latin America (Encripta) and Spain (Twelve Oaks). As previously announced, the rights in North America were acquired by Menemsha. The film was released in Finland in January by Nordisk Films.

“Never Alone,” based on the life of Abraham Stiller, tells the story of Jewish refugees seeking safety in Finland during World War II. As Nazi influence grows, Stiller, a Jewish leader in Helsinki, must risk everything to protect his community.

The cast is led by Ville Virtanen, Nina Hukkinen and Rony Herman. The film is produced by Ilkka Matila of Mrp Matila Röhr Prods., in co-production with Samsara Filmproduktion, Taska Film, Penned Pictures and Hobab.

It is supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, the Austrian Film Institute,...

Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson were among the latest high-profile names confirmed this afternoon as attendees for this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The pair were included this afternoon in an updated guest list shared by the festival.

Chalamet will attend for the German premiere of his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown while Pattinson will debut his Bong Joon-ho flick Micky 17. Both films play in the Berlinale Specials sidebar.

Other confirmed guests include Conclave filmmaker Edward Berger who will present Tilda Swinton her Honorary Golden Bear. Jessica Chastain will hit the German capital with Michel Franco’s Golden Bear Contender Dreams, and Jacob Elordi will make the trip to Berlin for the world premiere of his Justin Kurzel series The Narrow Road to the Deep South.

Other celebrity guests confirmed today by the festival include Naomi Ackie, Rose Byrne, Toni Collette, Denis Côté, Marion Cotillard, Lars Eidinger, Mala Emde,...

Barbara Sukowa with Anne-Katrin Titze on Edgar Reitz and Leibniz “I really wanted to do this just to honour him. He's a great filmmaker. And it was fun.”

In the second instalment on We’re Not Done Yet (a highlight of the Sundance Film Festival), following our conversation with co-directors Sofia Camargo and Joseph Longo, with music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman, Barbara Sukowa discusses her role as the mother to her real-life son Joseph Longo (who also wrote the script and edited the short). We also touch upon Noah Baumbach’s White Noise and the upcoming Leibniz, directed by Edgar Reitz and Anatol Schuster.

Alex (Joseph Longo) with his mother Bettina (Barbara Sukowa) on the beach in We're Not Done Yet

At the shore a woman in a cosy cardigan dives up into the frame as though she just emerged out of the sea. From a distance a man approaches,...

Exclusive: Sean Baker’s latest Anora has won Best Picture at this year’s Online Film Critics Society Awards. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

Anora also won Best Actress for star Mikey Madison and Best Screenplay while Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance also took home three awards for Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Qualley alongside a Technical Achievement Award for Makeup/Hairstyling.

Comprised of nearly 300 voting members from around the world, the Online Film Critics Society was founded in 1997. Members include writers from outlets such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Slant, Paste Magazine, AARP, and Sight & Sound.

In addition to the 2024 top film honors, the Online Film Critics Society hands out Special Achievement and Lifetime Achievement Awards. This year the body honors Ava DuVernay with a Special Achievement Award for her “brilliant work and for supporting a new generation of female filmmakers.” This year...

The competition line-up for the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival is being announced at a press conference at 11am Cet (10am GMT).

Scroll down for line-up

New festival director Tricia Tuttle is revealing the titles for the Competition and new Perspectives strand alongside co-directors of film programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.

The announcement is being live-streamed on the festival’s social channels. Watch it live above.

Screen will update this page with the titles as they are announced. Refresh the page for latest updates.

As previously announced, the festival will open with Tom Tykwer’s Special Gala out of competition selection The Light.

91-year-old German filmmaker Edgar Reitz, best known for the influential Heimat trilogy, has started shooting his latest film Leibniz, a portrait of leading Enlightenment thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

A German polymath and one of the founders of calculus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the most important thinkers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Leibniz recounts five days in his life in the winter of 1704/05, when he is supposed to sit for a portrait painter at Herrenhausen Palace. When the session fails, a young female painter from the Netherlands takes over. She sets herself the task of capturing...

Italian drama “Nonostante” by actor-director Valerio Mastandrea, and 1972 Munich Summer Olympics drama “September 5″ – helmed by Tim Fehlbaum and starring Peter Sarsgaard – have been set as openers of the Venice Film Festival’s cutting edge Horizons and Horizons Extra sections respectively.

The timely “September 5,” which has been picked up by Republic Pictures, reconstructs tough decisions made by an American sports broadcasting team that rapidly adapted from sports reporting to live coverage of the Israeli athletes taken hostage.

“Through this lens, ‘September 5’ provides a powerful new perspective on the live broadcast seen globally by an estimated one billion people at the time,” according to the film’s provided synopsis.

“September 5” is produced by Germany’s BerghausWöbke Filmproduktion and Projected Picture Works, in co-production with Constantin Film and Erf Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion.

Sean Penn is among “September 5″ producers along with Philipp Trauer, Thomas Wöbke, Tim Fehlbaum, Sean Penn, John Ira Palmer, and John Wildermuth.

Paramount’s Republic Pictures has acquired global sales rights – apart from Germany, Switzerland and Austria – to Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5,” which stars Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch, who broke out last year with the Oscar nominated “The Teachers’ Lounge.”

The film, which has Sean Penn as one of its producers, will open Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition section on Aug. 29. Sarsgaard won best actor at Venice last year for “Memory.”

“September 5” is set during the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, and follows an American sports broadcasting team that quickly adapted from sports reporting to live coverage of the Israeli athletes taken hostage.

Through this lens, “September 5” provides a new perspective on the live broadcast seen globally by an estimated one billion people at the time. The film “unveils the decisive moment that forever changed media coverage and continues to impact live news today,” according to a statement.

German acting legend Hanna Schygulla will be honored this year with a lifetime achievement award at the German Film Awards.

Best known for her work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), and Lili Marleen (1981), Schygulla’s career has included collaborations with the likes of Wim Wenders (1975’s Wrong Move), Jean-Luc Godard (1982’s Passion) and Fatih Akin (2007’s The Edge of Heaven). More recently, the 80-year-old actress has a scene-stealing cameo in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winner Poor Things as Martha von Kurtzroc, the eccentric woman Emma Stone’s character befriends on the cruise ship.

“Hanna Schygulla is an institution of German and European cinema,” said Alexandra Maria Lara, president of the German Film Academy, explaining the decision of the honorary jury. “Through her long-standing collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, she wrote herself into film history. She became an icon of German auteur cinema with international appeal.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s father-daughter drama Sentimental Value has received €200,000 from the German Federal Film Board (Ffa) and will shoot in Germany as well as in Norway and France later this year.

The film will reunite Trier with Renate Reinsve, the star of his Oscar-nominated The Worst Person In The World, and that film’s writer Eskil Vogt.

The production funding was allocated to the film’s German co-producer Komplizen Film which is producing with Norway’s Mer Film and Eye Eye Pictures, Denmark’s Zentropa, France’s Agat Films, and Mk Production.

The family drama is about two...

Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s father-daughter drama Sentimental Value has received €200,000 from the German Federal Film Board (Ffa) and will shoot in Germany as well as in Norway and France later this year.

The film will reunite Trier with Renate Reinsve, the star of his Oscar-nominated The Worst Person In The World, and that film’s writer Eskil Vogt.

The production funding was allocated to the film’s German co-producer Komplizen Film which is producing with Norway’s Mer Film and Eye Eye Pictures, Denmark’s Zentropa, France’s Agat Films, and Mk Production.

The family drama is about two...

Exclusive: Ingo Fliess, producer of director Ilker Çatak’s German International Feature Film Oscar nominee The Teachers’ Lounge, tells Breaking Baz that he has partnered with Munich-based Trimafilm to explore “common” projects.

Fliess’ production outfit If… Productions will start work with Trimafilm on a prestige television mini-series being developed for Çatak and Eva Trobisch, who works alongside Trimafilm’s founder Mariko Minoguchi as a writer and director, and whose film Ivo will play at the forthcoming Berlinale.

Both the If… Productions and Trimafilm outfits enjoy a similar flair for smart and socially aware movies, and for passionately made documentaries. Trimafilm’s releases include the feature film All Is Well and the documentary Iron Butterflies.

Fliess explained that last year his company decided to share office space with Trimafilm while “remaining two independent companies” who are in constant exchange “of ideas about directors, scripts, about ideas and having many synergies.” He stressed,...

The Co-Production Market will present 10 books selected for screen potential.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market has selected 10 books with potential for screen adaptations that it will present to the industry, in its Books at Berlinale development strand.

The selected titles include the upcoming A Poisoner’s Tale, the debut fiction novel from UK writer Cathryn Kemp, due for publication through Penguin Random House on July 11, 2024.

Scroll down to see the 10 selected books

Set in 17th-century Rome, the historical novel is a dark, feminist retelling of notorious Italian poisoner Giulia Tofana.

First launched in 2006, this year’s Books at Berlinale strand received...

The 91-year-old German filmmaker Edgar Reitz, director of the Heimat trilogy, will be honored at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival with the Berlinale Camera Award.

Reitz will receive the prize, which honors “personalities and institutions who have made a special contribution to filmmaking and with whom the festival feels closely connected,” at the 74th Berlinale on Feb. 22. The award ceremony will be followed by the world premiere of Reitz’s latest work, Filmstunde_23, co-directed with Jörg Adolph, which will screen out of competition as part of the festival’s Berlinale Special program.

Considered one of Germany’s most influential and important directors, Reitz is best known for his three Heimat films, from 1984, 1992 and 2004, which were presented both as feature films and as television series. The film cycle traces a century and a half of German history as seen through the lives of the Simons, a fictional family from the Hunsrück area of Rhineland-Palatinate,...

What Sets Us Free? New German Cinema is now showing on Mubi in most countries.The All-Round Reduced Personality.In September 1968, filmmaker Helke Sander delivered a spirited speech to the men of the powerful Socialist German Student Association (Sds). She demanded equal rights for women in all matters. How could women bring their perspective to political discourse when they were expected to organize the private lives of revolutionaries and raise the children? When she confronted the progressive men of the Sds with their sexism, Sander earned derisive laughter. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of upheaval and rebellion in Germany, but the male heroes of the anti-authoritarian student revolt had no interest in challenging their patriarchal dominance. As they fought against the established institutions with teach-ins, happenings and street protests, their wives, girlfriends, and lovers resisted male chauvinism at all levels of society. Film became an important means of...

The Playmaker Munich has signed with producer Ulysses Films to handle international sales for its upcoming family animation project “Pirate Mo & the Legend of the Red Ruby,” which has a planned release of early 2026.

Ulysses produced animation box-office hits such as “The Amazing Maurice” and “Niko & the Way to the Stars.”

The script for “Pirate Mo,” which is based on Kirsten Boie’s bestselling novel, was written by Richie Conroy, and the director is Florian Westermann, co-director of “The Amazing Maurice.”

The Playmaker team will present “Pirate Mo” at the Marché du Film in Cannes, and will deliver the first teaser presentation at their booth, and at their upcoming highlights market screening on May 18.

Emely Christians, one of the film’s producers, and CEO of Ulysses, said: “I’m really happy that we’ve found a great ‘world sales port’ for our ‘Pirate Mo’ film. The project is very close to my heart.

People On Sunday brought together Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann early in their careers.

A feminist remake of the 1930-Berlin set silent classic People On Sunday is being developed by German director Alice Agneskirchner, whose documentary Come With Me To The Cinema is screening in Berlinale Forum Special.

People On Sunday brought together Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann early in their careers and is seen as a key work in the development of their careers.

The film showed a group of young Berliners enjoying themselves in the city on a typical Sunday.

Like most film festivals this year, Locarno Film Festival will not be moving ahead as usual. However, they’ve found inventive ways to both celebrate filmmakers they’ve long admired and present films physically and digitally. After announcing a new initiative to support new films by Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Lav Diaz, Wang Bing, Miguel Gomes, and more, they’ve asked this class of talented directors to select their favorite films in Locarno history.

A Journey in the Festival’s History is devoted to Locarno’s 73-year history of showing the best in international cinema. Made up of twenty films, a selection will screen online for those in Switzerland as well as Mubi internationally. On August 5-15, they will also screen in person at Locarno’s theaters.

Lili Hinstin, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, said, “It would be an impossible task to present a review of the history...

Films by Roberto Rossellini, Chantel Akerman and Marguerite Duras feature in selection.

The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the selection of 20 classic film titles that will be showcased in its A Journey In The Festival’s History sidebar as part of its special hybrid edition running August 5 to 15.

The line-up is part of the festival’s ’Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films’ edition which was created after it was forced to cancel its 73rd edition due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The titles have been selected by the directors taking part in its festival’s exceptional The Films After Tomorrow initiative...

High-profile filmmakers including Lucrecia Martel and Lav Diaz have contributed to a retrospective program for the Locarno Film Festival (August 5-15), selecting 20 titles from the event’s 74-year history that will have online and physical screenings next month.

Due to ongoing pandemic disruption Locarno shifted the majority of its festival online this year, though ten of the below list of titles will still have physical screenings in Switzerland. The entire program will be shown online for free in Switzerland by the fest, while it is partnering with streamer Mubi to stream the films outside of the country.

Ranging from 1948 (Locarno’s third edition) to 2018 (its 71st), the titles offer a broad insight into the fest’s history and are directed by filmmakers such as Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, and Whit Stillman. The selectees are all participating in Locarno’s ‘The Films After Tomorrow’ initiative this year,...

Brücher piloted international promotions at Swiss Films and was a well-known figure on the festival and market circuit.

The Swiss and European film industry has paid tribute to film sales and marketing pioneer and veteran Francine Brücher, who died at the age of 77 in Munich after a long illness on May 6.

With her calm manner and sympathetic smile, Brücher was a well-known and much-liked figure on the festival and market circuit. She was best known in the latter part of her career for her work at Switzerland’s national cinema promotional body Swiss Films.

During her time at the agency...

The ceremony was conducted from a largely empty Berlin soundstage.

Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher was the big winner at this year’s German Film Awards which celebrated their 70th edition in a ceremony reflecting the new reality of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nominated in 10 categories, Fingscheidt’s debut feature took home statuettes for best film (the Lola in Gold), best screenplay, best direction, lead actor (to Albrecht Schuch), lead actress (to Helena Zengel), supporting actress (to Gabriela Maria Schmeide), editing and sound design.

Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, which premiered in Berlin Competition in February and had 11 nominations, was awarded...

“System Crasher,” Nora Fingscheidt’s social drama about a troubled young girl, swept the 70th German Film Awards on Friday, winning a total of eight Lolas, including best film, director, actress and actor.

Forced to revamp this year’s ceremony due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the German Film Academy did away with its traditional gala event and instead produced a stripped-down show tailor-made for television that proved uniquely spontaneous, innovative and entertaining.

Hosted by actor Edin Hasanovic (“Skylines”), the show, broadcast live from Berlin and airing on Ard’s Das Erste, featured guest entertainers, actors and presenters in the studio as well as filmmakers, award winners and musicians taking part via video feed from their homes, including a musical performance by Gregory Porter from Los Angeles.

In addition to best film and director awards, “System Crasher” won Fingscheidt the screenplay Lola, best actress for Helena Zengel, supporting actress for...

This year’s German Film Award nominees for best picture include hard-hitting social dramas, tales of romance and cultural divides, family relationships and musical icons as well as works by a growing number of filmmakers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The German Film Academy, forced to revamp its 70th German Film Awards ceremony due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, will honor the country’s most acclaimed films during a special live TV presentation on April 24.

The German Film Awards ceremony, which in the past aired pre-recorded on Zdf, will be broadcast live for the first time on Ard’s Das Erste, due in part to its remade and shortened presentation. Doing away with its traditional gala event, the show will instead include guest filmmakers, musicians and presenters taking part via video feed from their homes.

Six films are vying for the best picture trophy, nicknamed the Lola, among them Burhan Qurbani’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,...

The 11th edition of the festival directed by Felice Laudadio, which is unfolding in the Apulian capital between 21 to 28 March, will also be graced by the likes of Helen Mirren and Edgar Reitz. Ken Loach, Helen Mirren, Roberto Benigni and Edgar Reitz will be the super guests of the 11th Bif&st - Bari International Film Festival, directed by Felice Laudadio, which will bring the Apulian capital to life yet again between 21 and 28 March, with one additional location in the offing this year: the very recently renovated Piccinni Theatre, which will join the ranks of the Petruzzelli and Margherita theatres on this occasion. Among the 12 films selected for the International Panorama competition and set to be judged by the jury composed of films critics Michel Demopoulos and Oscar Iarussi, directors Pif and Alessandro Piva, and actress Martina Apostolova, we find Despite the Fog by Goran Paskaljević,...

Arri Media International has acquired international distribution rights to Andrei Konchalovsky’s Michelangelo biopic “Il Peccato” (“Sin”), which will have its world premiere as a Special Closing Event at the 14th Rome Film Festival (Oct. 17-27).

Written by Konchalovsky and Elena Kiseleva, the film is set in Florence in the 16th century and follows Michelangelo through “the agonies and ecstasy of his own creative genius, as two rival noble factions compete for his loyalty,” according to Arri.

Although widely considered a genius by his contemporaries, Michelangelo, played by Alberto Testone (“Suburra”), is reduced to poverty and depleted by his struggle to finish the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. When his commissioner and head of the Della Rovere nobility Pope Julius II dies, Michelangelo becomes obsessed with sourcing the finest marble to complete his tomb.

The artist’s loyalty is tested when Leo X of the rival Medici family ascends to...

The lineup has been unveiled for year’s edition of the Venice International Film Festival, taking place August 28 through September 7. Aside from films previously announced as coming to Tiff, some major new announcements include Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network, James Gray’s Ad Astra, Roy Andersson’s About Endlessness, Ciro Guerra’s Waiting for the Barbarians, David Michôd’s The King, Benedict Andrews’ Kristen Stewart-led biopic Seberg, and Roman Polanski’s J’accuse. Only two films by female directors made into the competition lineup: Haifaa Al-Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate and Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth.

Check out the lineup below (hat tip to Mubi), which also includes other sections at the festival.

Competition

The Truth (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

The Perfect Candidate (Haifaa Al-Mansour)

About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)

Wasp Network (Olivier Assayas)

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Guest of Honour (Atom Egoyan)

Ad Astra (James Gray)

A Herdade (Tiago Guedes)

Gloria Mundi (Robert Guédiguian...

This article is taken from Koschke #2, the publication of Berlin Critic's Week 2019. The issue brings together writings inspired by the film and debate program running alongside the Berlinale with reflections on the late German director and notorious public provocateur Christoph Schlingensief, whose legacy is also one of the topics of the opening conference at Volksbühne. Authors and interviewees include Erika Balsom, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Lili Hinstin, Eva Sangiorgi, Tricia Tuttle, Kong Rithdee and many others. Christoph Schlingensief. Courtesy of Filmgalerie 451.Christoph Schlingensief was the nightmare of the German middle class. He would target those elusive yet powerful elements of society that can only be defined negatively—neither right nor left, neither poor nor rich, neither gushing nor aloof—and drag them onto every stage, before every camera, into every spotlight. The Mittelklasse, the bourgeois median, was his origin, his métier, his life’s work. He raised hell wherever normality became normative.

For 11 years running, our end-of-the-year tradition on the Notebook has been to poll our roster of contributors to create fantasy double features of new and old films. But what about the curators behind Mubi itself? This year we begin what we hope to be a new tradition: publishing the favorite films of the year as chosen by our programming team: Daniel Kasman in the U.S., Anaïs Lebrun and Chiara Marañón in the U.K. We each have two lists: our top new films that premiered in 2018, and then a selection of revivals screened in cinemas.PREMIERESDaniel Kasman1. Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)2. The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)3. Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski, USA)4. The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles, USA)5. The Waldheim Waltz (Ruth Beckermann, Austria)6. Unsane (Steven Soderbergh, USA)7. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack, USA)8. The Red Shadow [director's cut]9. What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?...

Volker Schlöndorff‬ on Germany in Autumn (Deutschland Im Herbst): "In the film there is a segment which Heinrich Böll wrote and I directed about an Antigone production …" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

On the last day in April, after having returned from Indiana where he spoke at the 1968 in Europe and Latin America conference (held at the University of Notre Dame), Volker Schlöndorff met with me at Lincoln Center for a follow-up conversation on the topic. His 1966 film Young Törless, starring Mathieu Carrière, was also screened.

Earlier that morning he was up at Columbia discussing Antigone and May '68 in a class taught by his Return To Montauk co-screenwriter Colm Tóibín. The director of the Oscar-winning Tin Drum on the 50th anniversary year of the student protests shared his memories on the legacy of '68 and the eternal return of Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Max Zorn (Stellan Skarsgård) with Rebecca (Nina Hoss) in...

Argentinian filmmaker and Us actor honoured in Poland.

Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel and Us actor Edward Norton were the guests of honour at the seventh edition of the Transatlantyk Festival which comes to a close in the Polish city of Lodz on Friday evening (July 21).

Martel became the second woman director - after Germany’s Margarethe von Trotta - and the 11th filmmaker overall, to be awarded the Fipresci 90+ statuette in celebration of the International Federation of Film Critics’ ten decades of activities.

Fipresci general secretary Klaus Eder travelled to Lodz to present the award along with Transatlantyk’s director Jan A.P. Kaczmarek to Martel at a gala ceremony last night (Thursday) before a screening of her 2008 film The Headless Woman.

Previous recipients include Jean-Jacques Annaud, Edgar Reitz, Bela Tarr and the late Andrzej Wajda, while the choice of Martel this year was particularly fitting since the Polish festival had the Power of Woman as an overlying...

Argentinean filmmaker and Us actor honoured in Poland.

Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel and Us actor Edward Norton were the guests of honour at the seventh edition of the Transatlantyk Festival which comes to a close in the Polish city of Lodz on Friday evening (July 21).

Martel became the second woman director - after Germany’s Margarethe von Trotta - and the 11th filmmaker overall, to be awarded the Fipresci 90+ statuette in celebration of the International Federation of Film Critics’ ten decades of activities.

Fipresci general secretary Klaus Eder travelled to Lodz to present the award along with Transatlantyk’s director Jan A.P. Kaczmarek to Martel at a gala ceremony last night (Thursday) before a screening of her 2008 film The Headless Woman.

Previous recipients include Jean-Jacques Annaud, Edgar Reitz, Bela Tarr and the late Andrzej Wajda, while the choice of Martel this year was particularly fitting since the Polish festival had the Power of Woman as an overlying...

One entry point into the rich new issue of Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema would be the survey of ten "founding filmmakers of serial television": Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rossellini, Frederick Wiseman, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz, Krzysztof Kieslowski, David Lynch and Lars von Trier. Then you might move to the "Documents" section, collecting texts by or about Gilles Deleuze, Alexander Kluge, Marguerite Duras and Serge Daney, Chris Marker and others. There's also an interview Lodge Kerrigan, who's currently "[splitting] directing duties," as he puts it, with Amy Seimetz on Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience. And that's just the top of today's roundup of news and views. » - David Hudson...

One entry point into the rich new issue of Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema would be the survey of ten "founding filmmakers of serial television": Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rossellini, Frederick Wiseman, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz, Krzysztof Kieslowski, David Lynch and Lars von Trier. Then you might move to the "Documents" section, collecting texts by or about Gilles Deleuze, Alexander Kluge, Marguerite Duras and Serge Daney, Chris Marker and others. There's also an interview Lodge Kerrigan, who's currently "[splitting] directing duties," as he puts it, with Amy Seimetz on Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience. And that's just the top of today's roundup of news and views. » - David Hudson...

The Notebook is the North American home for Locarno Film Festival Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian's blog. Chatrian has been writing thoughtful blog entries in Italian on Locarno's website since he took over as Director in late 2012, and now you can find the English translations here on the Notebook as they're published. The Locarno Film Festival will be taking place August 3 - 13. In line with a long established dramaturgical mechanism, film criticism has shaped a history of cinema conceived in terms of discontinuity, one of dark ages followed or preceded by golden eras. Yet the habitual emphasis on the winds of change blowing in with the“nouvelles vagues,” although correct, has often ended up obscuring the cinema that came directly before it, charged with provincialism, not being very creative, and dominated by the requirements of the market. The “independent cinema = auteur cinema” equation may seem as natural as it is obvious but,...

Retrospective to include around 20 East and West German feature and documentary films from cinema and television.

The Retrospective of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) is to be dedicated to the year 1966, a year considered to be a turning point in German cinema.

“The year 1966 stands for extraordinary films in the West and the East, films which broke new artistic ground,” said Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick.

“The Retrospective 2016 shows the audacious revolt and tentative exploration in a time of transition.”

The strand will include around 20 East and West German feature and documentary films from cinema and television. Additionally, more than 30 films of short and medium length - a typical format at the time - will feature in film programmes and as supporting films.

In 1966, the New German Cinema wave received critical acclaim at major film festivals for the first time.

At the Berlinale, Peter Schamoni’s debut No Shooting Time for Foxes (Schonzeit für Füchse) won a...

Chis Marker's Chat écoutant la musiqueThere are dog people and there are cat people, this we know, and there are even people who claim to be of both—though latent sympathies remain unspoken, like with a parent and which child is their favorite. With the Vienna Film Festival welcoming me with a tumbling collection of dog and cat short films spanning cinema's history—the Austrian Film Museum, an essential destination each year collaborating with the Viennale, is hosting a “a brief zoology of cinema” throughout the festivities—it is clear that filmmakers, too, have their preference. Silent cinema decidedly prefers the more easily trained and exhibited canine, with 1907’s surreal favorite Les chiens savants as a certain kind of cruel pinnacle. For the cats, Chris Marker, already the presiding figure over so much in 20th century art, I think we can easily claim is the cine-laureate. One need not know...

★★★★☆ For more than thirty years, German filmmaker Edgar Reitz has devoted his career to chronicling his homeland through his ongoing Heimat series. He returns to the lineage of the Simon family with Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision (2013), an elegiac pastoral epic that profoundly values its sense of place whilst coveting the exotic allure of faraway asylum. Clocking in at over fifty hours in total, the series has explored national identity and domestic history through the undulating fortunes of the Simons across the twentieth century. Now leaping back to the mid-nineteenth century, the fictional Hunsrück village of Schabbach provides the setting.

The final instalment of Edgar Reitz’s remarkable epic Heimat is a dreamily evocative 1840s prequel

The most sublime case of monomania in European cinema, director Edgar Reitz has dedicated much of his life to recreating modern German history on screen. Heimat, his 1984 TV series, ran for more than 15 hours, tracing the fortunes of a family from its rural Prussian roots, starting in 1919; its title, meaning homeland, reclaimed the term from the disreputable connotations it had acquired in the Nazi era. Reitz later made a second tranche covering the 1960s in detail, then a third series which began with the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you include the female-focused “annexe”, Heimat Fragments, that makes 54 hours – now rounded up to 58 with the addition of Home From Home, Reitz’s prequel to the series.

This new chapter focuses primarily on a single character, Jakob, a 19th-century forebear of the Simon clan...

Henry Barnes and Peter Bradshaw join Xan Brooks for our weekly roundup of the big cinema releases. This week the team watch Tom Hardy Russian (not dragging) as a Soviet agent on the hunt for murderer in Child 44; get tangled up in the weeds of Alan Rickman's Versailles garden romp A Little Chaos; take their time with Home From Home, a 3hr 40min monolithic achievement from Edgar Reitz; and watch Anna Kendrick sing to save a marriage in The Last Five Years

• Want to bloc video? Listen to the audio-only version of this week's show. Continue reading...

In this excerpt from the Guardian Film Show Xan Brooks and Peter Bradshaw review Edgar Reitz's epic Home From Home, a three hour, 40 minute chronicle of a young farm hand's quest to learn a new language and culture and escape the confines of German society for a new life in Brazil. Home From Home: Chronicle of a Vision is released in the UK on 17 May Continue reading...

Corinth Films will distribute Edgar Reitz's "Home From Home," the struggle of 19th century German villagers trying to escape the hardships of home by emigrating to South America.  Jan Dieter Schneider stars as Jakob, who longs for a new life for himself and troubled family in Brazil and whose dreams may be shattered by his devious brother, Gustav, played by Maximilian Scheidt. But Jakob refuses to let his hard work and studies go to waste and rebels against the tired labor system. After being thrown in prison and brought to near death, Jakob must reunite with his family and love, Henriette.  "Home From Home" is planned for a limited theatrical release in July.   Read More: Review: Nadav Lapid's 'Policeman' Is Not Your Typical Tale of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict...

The Festival of German Films in China is showing cinema from Germany this year for the second time. 16 internationally successful and award-winning films will be presented to the public and industry in the four Chinese cities of Peking, Chengdu , Shenzhen and Hangzhou in this important film market. Director Doris Dörrie is the event's patron, actor Florian Stetter and director Georg Maas will also be guests. German Films is organising the Festival of German Films in China together with the Goethe-Institut.

The festival will be opened on 14 November 2014 in Peking with a gala and the screening of "Stations of the Cross" (Ufa Fiction, cine plus Filmproduktion) in the presence of the lead actor Florian Stetter and the patron Doris Dörrie at the Broadway Cinema. The film by Dietrich Brüggemann will also open the festival in Hangzhou . "Suck Me Shakespeer" by Bora Dagtekin (Ratpack Filmproduktion, Constantin Film Produktion) will be the opening film in Chengdu and Shenzhen.

Doris Dörrie will be honored in Peking with a retrospective which will open on 15 November 2014 with "Bliss." The film-maker will then travel to Shenzhen to participate in a workshop discussion with the Chinese documentary film-makers Andrew Lone and Zhao Dayo.

Director Georg Maas will be presenting his film "Two Lives" (De/No, Zinnober Film, B&T Film), last year's German Oscar® candidate, in Chengdu , Shenzhen and Hangzhou as well as Peking .

Apart from new German productions, the Peking program will also include a newly restored version of the silent film classic

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" by Robert Wiene with musical accompaniment by the Aljoscha Zimmermann ensemble. An accompanying program at the film archive in Peking aims to promote an exchange of views and experiences between Chinese and German film-makers.Christiane von Wahlert, the managing director of Spio, will speak here with Chinese industry representatives about the age rating for feature films, and Stefan Drößler, the director of Munich 's Film Museum , will talk about the digital restoration of films.

All of the films in the program of the Festival of German Films in China :

Peking (14 – 20 November 2014 ) Broadway Cinema:

"Stations of the Cross" (Kreuzweg) by Dietrich Brüggemann (Ufa Fiction, cine plus Filmproduktion) (opening film)

"Home from Home" (Die Andere Heimat) by Edgar Reitz (De/Fr, Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion)

"Suck Me Shakespeer" (Fack Ju Gohte) von Bora Dagtekin (Rat Pack Filmproduktion, Constantin Film Produktion)

"The Woman Who Dares" (Die Frau Die Sich Traut) by Marc Rensing (Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion)

"Hanna's Journey" (Hannas Reise) by Julia von Heinz (2 Pilots Filmproduction, Kings&Queens Filmproduktion)

"Master of the Universe" by Marc Bauder (De/At, bauderfilm)

"Broken Glass Park" (Scherbenpark) by Bettina Blümner (Eyeworks Film Gemini)

"Two Lives" (Zwei Leben) by Georg Maas (De/No, Zinnober Film, B&T Film)

"Inbetween Worlds" (Zwischen Welten) by Feo Aladag (Independent Artists Filmproduktion, Geißendorfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion)

German School - Peking : Doris Dörrie retrospective:

"The Whole Shebang" (Alles Inklusive) by Doris Dörrie (Olga Film)

"The Hairdresser" (Die Friseuse) by Doris Dörrie (Collina Filmproduktion)

"Bliss" (Gluck) by Doris Dörrie (Constantin Film Produktion, Rainer Curdt Filmproduktion)

"Cherry Blossoms" (Kirschbluten- Hanami) by Doris Dörrie (Olga Film)

German Embassy:

"Beloved Sisters" (Die Geliebten Schwestern) by Dominik Graf (De/At, Bavariafilmverleih- und Produktion, Senator Film, Kiddinx Filmproduktion)

"West" (Westen) by Christian Schwochow (zero one film, Terz Film, öFilm, Senator Film)

Peking Film Archive:

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" ( Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari) by Robert Wiene (Decla-Film)

-Chengdu (November 16 – 23, 2014) / Shenzhen (November 18 – 25, 2014):

"Suck Me Shakespeer" (Fack Ju Gohte, opening film) von Bora Dagtekin (Rat Pack Filmproduktion, Constantin Film Produktion)

"Home from Home" (Die Andere Heimat) by Edgar Reitz (De/Fr, Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion)

"The Woman Who Dares" (Die Frau Die Sich Traut) by Marc Rensing (Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion)

"Hanna's Journey" (Hannas Reise) by Julia von Heinz (2 Pilots Filmproduction, Kings&Queens Filmproduktion)

"Master of the Universe" by Marc Bauder (De/At, bauderfilm)

"Two Lives" (Zwei Leben) by Georg Maas (De/No, Zinnober Film, B&T Film)

"Inbetween Worlds" (Zwischen Welten)) by Feo Aladag (Independent Artists Filmproduktion, Geißendorfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion)

-Hangzhou (20. – 29. November 2014 ):

"Stations of the Cross" by Dietrich Brüggemann (Ufa Fiction, cine plus Filmproduktion) (opening film)

"Home from Home" (Die Andere Heimat) by Edgar Reitz (De/Fr, Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion)

"Suck Me Shakespeer" (Fack Ju Gohte) by Bora Dagtekin (Rat Pack Filmproduktion, Constantin Film Produktion)

"The Woman Who Dares" (Die Frau Die Sich Traut) by Marc Rensing (Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion)

"Hanna's Journey" (Hannas Reise) by Julia von Heinz (2 Pilots Filmproduction, Kings&Queens Filmproduktion)

"Master of the Universe" by Marc Bauder (De/At, bauderfilm)

"Two Lives" (Zwei Leben) by Georg Maas (De/No, Zinnober Film, B&T Film)

"Inbetween Worlds" (Zwischen Welten) by Feo Aladag (Independent Artists Filmproduktion, Geißendorfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion)

Further information about the festival can be found at www.festivalofgermancinema.com and in the festival brochure .

The Festival of German Films in China is supported by the German Embassy in Peking .

Sponsors of German Films and the Goethe Institut at the festival are: Audi, Kempinski Hotels, Lufthansa Center and Arri

The festival's partners are: The Art Gallery of Sichuan University, Beijing Film Academy , China Film Archive, Bookworm, the German Embassy School , EU Film Festival, Labor Berlin, Oca, Ucat and the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation

Media partners: MTime, Movie and Ent Qq

Cinema partners: Palace, Moma, Broadway and IMAX

China is a promising film market with an enormous potential for growth. German Films has been active in the Middle Kingdom for 11 years and is represented there in all affairs by Anke Redl. Apart from the Focus Germany at the Shanghai International Film Festival, German Films also regularly supports the presence of German films at the Shanghai TV Festival.

Further information about China 's film market in the German Films market study.

On German Films:

German Films Service + Marketing is the national information and advisory center for the international distribution of German films. The aim of German Films' activities is to raise the level of awareness for German cinema abroad via information services, lobbying, PR and marketing measures and to make it visible in the international media arena.

Website: www.german-films.de

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/German-Films

Twitter: https://twitter.com/German_Films

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This year’s European Film Awards are officially out of the gates with a not so lean 50 film submissions to select from. The 27th edition collects titles that date back to last year’s Venice and Toronto Int. Film Festivals moving into Sundance-Rotterdam-Berlin and finally Cannes of ’14. Among the 31 European countries represented, we’ve got likes of the Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan leading the huge pack of contenders including Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. Here’s the complete list of 50!:

Alienation

ОТЧУЖДЕНИЕ (Otchujdenie)

Bulgaria

Directed By: Milko Lazarov

Written By: Milko Lazarov, Kitodar Todorov & Georgi Tenev

Produced By: Veselka Kiryakova

Amour Fou

Austria/Luxembourg/Germany

Written & Directed By: Jessica Hausner

Produced By: Martin Gschlacht, Antonin Svoboda, Bruno Wagner, Bady Minck, Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu & Philippe Bober

Beautiful Youth

Hermosa Juventud

Spain/France

Directed By: Jaime Rosales

Written By: Jaime Rosales & Enric Rufas

Produced By: Jaime Rosales,...

Today we catch up with catch up with To Be (Cont'd) and its latest discussions, one on Claire Denis, the other on "Slow Cinema." Also in the latest roundup: Edgar Reitz, Christoph Hochhäusler, Volker Schlöndorff and Peter Strickland on the movie posters of the late designer Hans Hillmann, Sasha Archibald on Agnès Varda's years in Los Angeles, Pawel Pawlikowski on the making of Ida, an interview with Ben Russell and King Vidor's story about directing Lillian Gish. » - David Hudson...

Today we catch up with catch up with To Be (Cont'd) and its latest discussions, one on Claire Denis, the other on "Slow Cinema." Also in the latest roundup: Edgar Reitz, Christoph Hochhäusler, Volker Schlöndorff and Peter Strickland on the movie posters of the late designer Hans Hillmann, Sasha Archibald on Agnès Varda's years in Los Angeles, Pawel Pawlikowski on the making of Ida, an interview with Ben Russell and King Vidor's story about directing Lillian Gish. » - David Hudson...

More than 30 European countries represented in the line-up.Scroll down for list in full

The 50 films recommended for a nomination for the European Film Awards (EFAs) have been unveiled.

The European Film Academy and Efa Productions revealed the titles at a press conference in Riga, Latvia where this year’s 27th EFAs will take place on Dec 13.

A total of 31 European countries are represented. In the 20 countries with the most Efa members, these members have voted one national film directly into the selection list.

To complete the list, a selection committee consisting of Efa Board Members and invited experts have included further films. Those experts include Screen International chief film critic and reviews editor Mark Adams (UK), Marit Kapla (Sweden), Stefan Kitanov (Bulgaria), Paz Lázaro (Spain), Christophe Leparc (France) and Elma Tataragic (Bosnia & Herzegovina).

In the coming weeks, more than 3,000 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the categories European Film, Director...

Festival will also see director Rowan Joffe and novelist Sj Watson present Before I Go To Sleep, starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong.

The 34th edition of the Cambridge Film Festival (Aug 28 - Sept 7) is to open with The Kidnapping Of Michel Houellebecq, Guillaume Nicloux’s comedy-drama based in part on true events.

It recounts the disapperance of reclusive French novelist Michel Houellebecq during a book tour in 2011. The rumours of his whereabouts led to endless speculation, including a kidnapping. The film, which stars the novelist as himself, will be presented at the festival by Nicloux.

Special guests at this year’s festival include writer-director Rowan Joffe and novelist Sj Watson who will present Before I Go To Sleep, an amnesiac thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong.

Skip Kite will present his timely tribute to late politican Tony Benn: Will and Testament, while Andrew Sinclair, director of 1972’s...

A total of 15 films have been submitted for consideration.

German producers have submitted 15 films for consideration to German Films as the country’s entry for the 87th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

An independent expert jury will decide on Aug 27 which film is to be sent into the race for Germany.

The following titles were submitted:

Home From Home – Chronicle Of A Vision

Edgar Reitz (De/Fr, Erf Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion)

Beloved Sisters

Dominik Graf (Bavaria Filmverleih- und Produktion)

Finsterworld

Frauke Finsterwalder (Walker + Worm Film)

Hanna’s Journey

Julia von Heinz (De/Il, 2 Pilots Filmproduction)

Im Weissen Rössl – Wehe Du Singst

Christian Theede (Ziegler Film)

Stations Of The Cross

Dietrich Brüggemann (Ufa Fiction)

Run Boy Run

Pepe Danquart (De/Fr, bittersuess pictures, A Company Filmproduktion, B.A. Produktion, Quinte Film)

The Last Mentsch

Pierre-Henri Salfati (Elsani Film)

Stereo

Maximilian Erlenwein (Frisbeefilms, Kaissar Film, Wild Bunch Germany)

West

Christian Schwochow (zero one film, Terz...