A week of German film in Malaga
The consulate, the Goethe Institute and SUR Deutsche Ausgabe have organised a festival that includes award-winning movies and Germany's Oscar candidate
FRANCISCO GRIÑÁN
Viernes, 7 de febrero 2020, 15:43
His favourite cinema, the Albéniz in Malaga, already hosts French and Italian film festivals, so it was logical that newspaper editor Uwe Scheele asked himself, "Why not German?"
1ST GERMAN FILM WEEK, A SELECTION
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STYX
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Director Wolfgang Fischer.
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Story A doctor sets sail from Gibraltar and meets a sinking refugee boat. Tuesday 18 February.
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Gundermann
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Director Andreas Dresen.
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Story Rock musician Gerhard Gundermann, his life as a miner and Stasi links. Winner of German cinema's Lola prize. Wednesday 19.
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Exit (Leaving Extremism Behind)
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Director Karen Winther
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Story
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Documentary. Winther talks to Germans, French, Norwegians and Americans who, like her, broke from extremism. Wednesday 19.
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Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog
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Director Julian Radmaier.
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Story A smitten film director becmes an apple picker, a traitor and a pet. Radmaier has been dubbed the 'German Woody Allen'. Thursday 20.
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The Long Summer of Theory
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Director Irene von Alberti.
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Story Berlin, summer of 2016. Nola, Katja and Martina form an artists' commune. Thursday 20.
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Reise Nach Jerusalem
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Director Lucia Chiarla.
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Story Alice keeps up appearances but makes a living from precarious jobs.
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Friday 21.
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Atlas
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Director David Nawrath.
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Story Walter works in evictions; one day he has to evict his separated son. Saturday 22.
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System Crasher
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Director Nora Fingscheidt.
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Story
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Benni, 9, lives in a foster family and drives everyone to despair. German Oscar candidate and Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Festival. Saturday 22.
This idea led to the creation of the city's 1st German Film Week organised by this newspaper's younger German sister, SUR Deutsche Ausgabe, along with the German consulate in Malaga and the Goethe cultural institute in Madrid.
The event will take place between 18 and 23 February and will feature recent successes and critics' favourites, such as Germany's Oscar candidate this year, Systemsprenger (System Crasher).
Another nine titles complete the festival lineup and all films will be screened in their original German version with Spanish subtitles.
The selection is "fresh", explained the director of the Goethe institute, Reinhard Maiworn, at the launch on Tuesday.
"They are all films from last year and, except for Andreas Dresen's production, are by young directors from a generation that we could baptise as the New German Cinema," he said, with reference to the movement that took that same title in the 70s, with directors now considered as classics such as Fassbinder, Wenders, Schlöndorff and Herzog.
The Film Week kicks off on Tuesday 18 February with one of the most anticipated titles, Styx by Wolfgang Fischer, which was screened at the Berlin and Toronto festivals and tells the story of the encounter out at sea of a leisure yacht with a migrant boat.
The programme continues with films by directors such as Lucia Chiarla, the 'German Woody Allen' Julian Radlmaier, Irene von Alberti, David Nawrath and Sven Taddicken, as well as the aforementioned Dresen and Oliver Haffner. In the documentary Exit, Karen Winther talks to people of different nationalities who have left extremist groups.
The German consul in Malaga, Arnulf Braun, pointed out that Spain only has festivals of this type in Madrid and Barcelona. He added that the aim was to make the Film Week a regular event and to promote the "exchange" of German and Spanish cultures.
It is calculated that around 60,000 German-speakers live in Malaga province - from Germany, Austria and Switzerland - who will be attracted to this festival, along with local film enthusiasts.
"The aim is to arouse an interest in the German culture by introducing the latest productions from our country," said Braun.
Tickets cost five euros from the box office and through Uniticket. They are also available via the Oferplan platform.
