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Above: the former Arsenal Cinema. Photo by Marian Stefanowski.In 1971, Erika and Ulrich Gregor and the other Friends of the German Film Archive (now Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art) founded the International Forum of New Cinema as a reaction to the crisis at the Berlin Film Festival in 1970. The Forum became “a parallel event on an equal footing” alongside the Berlinale Competition and placed a focus on films that “advance the development process of the medium of film and make new functions of film within society visible.” After Erika and Ulrich Gregor headed the Forum for 30 years, Christoph Terhechte took over the section from 2002 to 2018. Milena Gregor, Birgit Kohler, and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, who make up the Arsenal board of directors, took over the interim leadership for the 49th Forum in 2019. Since this year, Cristina Nord has been head of the Forum, which is taking place for the 50th time.

Jeremy Irons previously announced to lead seven-person jury.

The Berlin International Film Festival (February 20 – March 1) has revealed its competition juries, including director Kenneth Lonergan, actress Bérénice Bejo and filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho.

The seven-person jury also includes German producer Bettina Brokemper, Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir, and Italian actor Luca Marinelli.

Lonergan is the Oscar-winning writer-director of Manchester By The Sea while Argentine-French star Bejo is perhaps best-known for her performance in Academy Award-winner The Artist. Brazil’s Mendonça Filho won the jury prize at last year’s Cannes with Bacurau.

Jeremy Irons was announced last month as president of the jury for the 70th edition,...

Casualties of War

Blu-ray – Region B

Explosive Media

1992/ 2:35:1 / 113 Min. / Street Date December 1, 2016

Starring Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn

Cinematography by Stephen Burum

Written by David Rabe

Music by Ennio Morricone

Edited by Bill Pankow

Produced by Fred C. Caruso, Art Linson

Directed by Brian De Palma

In 1969 The New Yorker published a detailed exposé by Daniel Lang concerning four soldiers deployed in the Phu My district of Vietnam who abducted a young woman and raped her repeatedly over the course of the next 24 hours. The following day, fearing discovery by incoming American helicopters, the sergeant in command of the squad ordered her killed.

There was a fifth soldier traveling with that crew, Max Erickson, the only man in Lang’s reporting with anything resembling a moral compass, who observed the actions of his sidekicks with a mix of helplessness and horror. His accusations lead to courts martial...

Syria’s first ever submission in the Motion Picture Academy’s Foreign Language category, “Little Gandhi”, is one of a handful of documentaries submitted for Best Foreign Language Film nomination this year.

It comes to the Academy in a most unusual way. It was selected not by the country which is how submissions are always made, but by a committee of artists in exile. If any of these people had actually been in Syria they would likely have been imprisoned, tortured and executed, for this was the fate of Ghiyath Matar, the Syrian activist who became known for giving flowers and roses to army soldiers in his home town of Daraya, leader of the once peaceful Syrian revolution and the Little Gandhi of the title. It premiered at the ongoing Asian World Film Festival.

I have yet to see the documentary submission for Academy Award® nomination entitled Syria Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of Isis...

Comedy and romance bookend the 2017 Stony Brook Film Festival presented by Island Federal Credit Union. The 22nd Annual Sbff opens on July 20th at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University. U.S. premiere screening of Welcome to Germany (Willkommen bei den Hartmanns), a feature written and directed by Simon Verhoeven (Men in the City), opens the Festival. Welcome to Germany is a timely comedy about a well-off Munich family who offer to take in a refugee. The film stars Senta Berger, Heiner Lauterbach, Palina Rojinski, Elyas M'Barek and Eric Kabongo. The film from Picture Tree, produced by Quirin Berg, Michael Verhoeven, Simon Verhoeven and Max Wiedemann, is being shown in its first screening in North America. A romantic comedy, Text for You, from...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

A new fashion among San Francisco film festivals: adding another branded event during the year, months before or after the annual festival. Both the Silent Film Festival and Noir City have winter film events — Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, uses the December Christmas-themed evening to reveal the program for the upcoming January Noir City. This year's theme, for lucky Noir City 13: the bonds of matrimony, or, as Eddie intoned: "Engagement ring, wedding ring, suffering." This year the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's all-day, six-film Winterfest 2015 was scheduled opposite the second day of Noir City, making life difficult (but not impossible) for an intrepid (and compulsive) festival-goer. It was cleverly programmed: first a German fiction film, "Let's Go," directed by Michael Verhoeven, about an expatriate woman reflecting on her Jewish family's life when returning to Germany after the death of her father; then a moving documentary, "Yalom's...

The 24th annual New York Jewish Film Festival opens tonight and runs through January 29. "Of the large number of films (out of 47 features and shorts) that broach the subject of assimilation, Russian director Alexey Fedorchenko’s Angels of Revolution provides a model for exploring the metamorphosis," writes Howard Feinstein for Filmmaker. His other must-sees are Maxime Giroux's Felix and Meira, Michael Verhoeven's Let's Go!, Daniel Burman's The Mystery of Happiness and Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz's Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem. We're gathering more reviews of more films as they appear. » - David Hudson...

The 24th annual New York Jewish Film Festival opens tonight and runs through January 29. "Of the large number of films (out of 47 features and shorts) that broach the subject of assimilation, Russian director Alexey Fedorchenko’s Angels of Revolution provides a model for exploring the metamorphosis," writes Howard Feinstein for Filmmaker. His other must-sees are Maxime Giroux's Felix and Meira, Michael Verhoeven's Let's Go!, Daniel Burman's The Mystery of Happiness and Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz's Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem. We're gathering more reviews of more films as they appear. » - David Hudson...

Eva Mattes, who turns 60 today, has been acting on stage and in front of the camera since she was twelve. Internationally, she'll probably always be associated with the New German Cinema. She was still a teenager when she appeared as a Vietnamese rape victim in Michael Verhoeven's o.k. (1970), which caused an uproar at the Berlinale. In 1979, Mattes won a Best Supporting Actress award in Cannes for her performance in Werner Herzog's Woyzeck. She'd previously worked with him on Stroszek (1977). She appeared in several films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and played him two years after his death in Ein Mann wie Eva. More recently, Mattes has appeared in Frieder Schlaich's Otomo (1999), Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Percy Adlon's Mahler on the Couch (2010). » - David Hudson...

Eva Mattes, who turns 60 today, has been acting on stage and in front of the camera since she was twelve. Internationally, she'll probably always be associated with the New German Cinema. She was still a teenager when she appeared as a Vietnamese rape victim in Michael Verhoeven's o.k. (1970), which caused an uproar at the Berlinale. In 1979, Mattes won a Best Supporting Actress award in Cannes for her performance in Werner Herzog's Woyzeck. She'd previously worked with him on Stroszek (1977). She appeared in several films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and played him two years after his death in Ein Mann wie Eva. More recently, Mattes has appeared in Frieder Schlaich's Otomo (1999), Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Percy Adlon's Mahler on the Couch (2010). » - David Hudson...

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The Young and Prodigious Spivet will be the opening film at this year’s Filmfest München (June 27-July 5) after Jeunet previously kicked off the festival in Munich in 2001 with Amelie From Montmartre.

Special highlights at what will be Diana Iljine’s fourth outing as festival director include the first ever complete retrospective dedicated to the veteran Us director Walter Hill, a gala evening in honour of the Oscar-winning producer Arthur Cohn with a screening of The Children Of Huang Shi, and a tribute to the producer-director-cinematographer Willy Bogner.

The Walter Hill retrospective will range from his 1975 debut Hard Times, starring Charles Bronson and James Coburn, through such classics as The Long Riders and The Warriors and two films made for Us television - the pilot Deadwood and the Western epic Broken Trail - to his 2012 film Bullet To The Head, with Sylvester Stallone and Christian Slater.

World premieres

Munich will also be hosting a number...

The Stella Artois poured freely (because it was free) at the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown St. Louis last night. It was the closing-night party for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival where the slate of audience-choice and juried-competition winners were announced to an attentive crowd.

Audience Choice Awards

Best Narrative Feature: .The Sapphires,. directed by Wayne Blair

Best International Narrative Feature: .Quartet,. directed by Dustin Hoffman Leon Award for Best Documentary Feature: .The Entertainers,. directed by Michael Zimmer  Juried Competition Awards New Filmmakers Forum Emerging Filmmaker Award (The Bobbie)   Winner ($500 cash prize): .Faith, Love and Whiskey,. directed by Kristina Nikolova Special Jury Citation: .Sun Don.t Shine,. directed by Amy Seimetz St. Louis Film Critics. Joe Pollack Awards

Best Narrative Feature: .Barbara,. directed by Christian Petzold Special Jury Citation for Acting in Narrative Feature: Rachel Mwanza, lead actress of .War Witch. Best Documentary Feature: .Uprising,...

In its 15th edition, Berlin & Beyond (B&B) resituates itself from its previous mid-January slot to San Francisco's October film festival calendar, enrichening the Bay Area's autumnal palette of national cinemas with select films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Running October 22-28 at San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre and October 30 at the Camera 12 Cinemas in San Jose, the festival's fresh disposition is being helmed by incoming Festival Director Sophoan Sorn. Saluting previous Festival Director Dr. Ingrid Eggers for her 14 years of creative spirit, dedicated service, and impassioned leadership, B&B turns its eye "to another 15 years and beyond!"

Berlin & Beyond's calendar shift to October affords the festival the opportunity to join forces with their sister festival, German Currents in Los Angeles, coordinated by each city's respective branches of the Goethe-Institut as "a united West Coast German Film Event". The rewards of such a maneuver are immediately apparent. Boasting 24 feature films...

It's a wrap! The Martin Gropius Bau is empty and the final pickups follow. This is a work in progress and readers are invited and welcome to contribute. Presales have returned in reaction to the reduced number of finished films on offer over the past two markets. Presales applies across the board from Us to French and even Italian films. English language films are increasingly coming out of the major non English language territories but local product is impacting sales on Us films internationally. Business was quickly wrapped up but it was done with a healthy number of buys reported. Lower prices have become accepted but the market must have product as this event proved.

Adriana Chiesa has licensed Federico Moccia’s teen trilogy to Savor to Spain. The first title, Sorry If I Love You (Scusa Ma Ti Chiamo Amore) grossed $27m when released by Medusa on 600 prints in Italy.

Cologne, Germany -- German director Michael Verhoeven, American actor Ben Foster and Malaysian producer Lorna Tee will form the jury for the Best First Feature Award at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.

Verhoeven will be jury president. The director is a part of Berlin festival history. His anti-Vietnam war film "O.K.," led to the collapse of the 1970 Berlinale after jury president George Stevens called it an insult to America and demanded it be expelled from competition.

Foster was in Berlin just last year for Oren Moverman's competition entry "The Messenger." Tee, formerly a marketing and distribution exec at Focus Films Hong Kong, now runs her own production outfit, Paperheart, and Asian-based fund Irresistible Films.

The trio will judge debut features from Berlin's competition, Panorama and Generation sections. Berlin's Best First Feature Award comes with a €50,000 ($70,000) bursary, that is split between the director and producer of the winning film.

This review was written for the theatrical release of "The Unknown Soldier".First Run Features

NEW YORK -- In this documentary, German director Michael Verhoeven applies a nonfiction approach to themes explored in such films as "The White Rose" and the Oscar-nominated "The Nasty Girl".

This exploration of the uproar stirred up in Germany by a touring exhibition that made the case for the complicity of ordinary soldiers in the Holocaust lacks stylistic distinction, but the relevancy and importance of its subject matter more than compensate. "The Unknown Soldier" is playing at New York's Quad Cinema.

The Wehrmacht exhibition, which began in 1997 Munich and proceeded to tour German cities for the next several years, was a wake-up call to a country that had long comforted itself with the idea that only specific entities of Hitler's military forces carried out the policy of mass extermination.

Using home movies, photographs and documents, the exhibition made a strong case that many German soldiers were not only aware of what was going on but also took part in it without hesitation.

Needless to say, the exhibit stirred great controversy, which Verhoeven elucidates with interviews with many of the historians who contributed to it, as well as those who oppose its assertions. Ordinary citizens, including several military vets, weigh in as well, often in turbulent fashion.

The film's momentum becomes somewhat bogged down by the daunting procession of talking heads, and the issues are not always made clear enough for those not intimately familiar with World War II history. But ultimately "Unknown Soldier" emerges as a complicated and troubling portrait of the diverse aspects of the German national psyche.

First Run Features

NEW YORK -- In this documentary, German director Michael Verhoeven applies a nonfiction approach to themes explored in such films as The White Rose and the Oscar-nominated The Nasty Girl.

This exploration of the uproar stirred up in Germany by a touring exhibition that made the case for the complicity of ordinary soldiers in the Holocaust lacks stylistic distinction, but the relevancy and importance of its subject matter more than compensate. The Unknown Soldier is playing at New York's Quad Cinema.

The Wehrmacht exhibition, which began in 1997 Munich and proceeded to tour German cities for the next several years, was a wake-up call to a country that had long comforted itself with the idea that only specific entities of Hitler's military forces carried out the policy of mass extermination.

Using home movies, photographs and documents, the exhibition made a strong case that many German soldiers were not only aware of what was going on but also took part in it without hesitation.

Needless to say, the exhibit stirred great controversy, which Verhoeven elucidates with interviews with many of the historians who contributed to it, as well as those who oppose its assertions. Ordinary citizens, including several military vets, weigh in as well, often in turbulent fashion.

The film's momentum becomes somewhat bogged down by the daunting procession of talking heads, and the issues are not always made clear enough for those not intimately familiar with World War II history. But ultimately Unknown Soldier emerges as a complicated and troubling portrait of the diverse aspects of the German national psyche.

COLOGNE, Germany -- Michael Verhoeven, one of Germany's most prolific political filmmakers, best known for his films dealing with Germany's Nazi past, will receive a lifetime achievement honor at next year's Bavarian Film Awards, organizers announced Wednesday. The award will be presented Jan. 19 at a gala ceremony in Munich.

Verhoeven, a director, actor, writer and producer, told the story of the failed anti-Nazi resistance group led by siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl in The White Rose, (1982), a film that was an inspiration for Marc Rothemund's Oscar-nominated "Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days." (2005).

The director's My Mother's Courage (1995) is the true story of how one woman escaped the Nazis' deportation of 4,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in 1944. And 1990's Nasty Girl, which won a Berlin Silver Bear and a U.K. Bafta award for best foreign-language film, follows a German high school student who uncovers her town's secret collaboration with the Nazis during the war.

Verhoeven's latest film, the documentary The Unknown Soldier, is an examination of the German army's involvement in the Holocaust.

BERLIN -- Taking advantage of the discovery of long buried documents in old East German archives and recent interviews with witnesses or relatives and friends of those involved in the historical episode, the makers of Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days provide a clear and compelling account of the last six days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a resister of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1943. The movie is understandably static as the guts of the film are Sophie's interrogations by Gestapo officer Robert Mohr. But it's static electricity. The film has a jumpy, nervous energy as the two verbally dual over matters of life and death.

Rock solid performances by up-and-coming German actress Julia Jentsch as Sophie and Alexander Held (Downfall) as Mohr along with an excellent cast of supporting players insure that no one mistakes this for a lifeless docu-drama. Sophie Scholl will have its largest impact, of course, in German-speaking territories. But with interest in that era recently sparked by Downfall, the film could get picked up in many other territories.

Sophie may be a major heroine in German history, but Jentsch plays her for what she was -- an ordinary young woman who in extraordinary times finds the courage to do what is right. She and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) are members of the White Rose resistance, a group portrayed in other German films, most notably Michael Verhoeven's The White Rose. A foolish decision to smuggle anti-Nazi leaflets into Munich University and secretly distribute them while classes are in session results in the arrest of Sophie and Hans on February 18, 1943.

Director Marc Rothemund and his frequent collaborator, writer Fred Breinersdorfer, then let events speak for themselves. Separated from the others, Sophie is grilled by Mohr for hours. Initially, she denies involvement and is so convincing she is nearly released. Then comes damning evidence found in a search of the siblings' apartment. When Sophie sees her brother's confession, she too admits guilt -- and does so with pride.

Now comes Sophie's verbal dance with Mohr to protect friends and fellow collaborators. Later, Mohr offers Sophie a chance to get a milder sentence at the price of renouncing her ideals. She refuses. But the most interesting part of the interrogation comes when these two debate the goals and methods of the Nazi government and the question of how posterity will remember their differing points of view.

Mohr is a long time interrogator. His interest lies in upholding the law and not who wrote the law or whether it has anything to do with justice. Sophie contends that there is a thing called right and wrong that is separate from what any particular law says.

Mohr was a man who in 1943 must have known how badly things were going in the war -- which is the major point of the students' leaflets -- as well as being aware of the heinous deeds in the Nazi's rule. Held's Mohr never equivocates or concedes any of Sophie's points. Yet he develops a grudging admiration for her and struggles to answer some points.

Certainly, his offer to save her neck is curious if he truly believes what he says he does. It may be his final, futile attempt to win the argument. And herein lies the dramatic and moral value of the movie: Their argument transcends the Nazi era. It looks to civil courage, a thing in short supply even today.

Rothemund keeps sets, costumes and camerawork simple so the greater concentration is on his actors and the play of words. He and Breinersdorfer refuse to sentimentalize any of Sophie's decisions over these few days. But they do see her battle against tyranny as a dramatic assertion of human beings' desire for freedom no matter what the cost.

SOPHIE SCHOLL -- THE FINAL DAYS

Bavaria Films International presents a Goldkind Film and Broth Film production

Credits:

Director: Marc Rothemund

Writer: Fred Breinersdorfer

Producers: Christoph Mueller, Sven Burgemeister, Fred Breinersdorfer, Marc Rotheremund

Director of photography: Martin Langer

Production designer: Jana Karen

Music: Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil

Costumes: Natascha Nesslauer

Editor: Hans Funck.

Cast: Sophie Scholl: Julia Jentsch

Robert Mohr: Alexander Hold

Hans Scholl: Fabian Hinrichs

Else Gebel: Johanna Gastdort

Dr. Freisier: Andre Hennicke

Christoph Pobst: Florian Stetter

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 120 minutes...