Germany is not only a country of sheet metal Trabant cars, nostalgic Berlin Wall or tasty wursts but also a country of world famous film jewels, including those for children and youth. Zlín Film Festival has decided to dedicate 2015 right to this neighbouring country. Days of German Cinema section will present to its Zlín audience 50 feature films altogether and you can also look forward to some of the latest movies included in competitions of films for children, short animated films, student films and European debuts. The section is divided into five parts – German Films for Children, German Films for Youth, German Choice, Berlin, the City of Stories, and New German Films for Children and Youth.
Every year, German films for children and youth form an inevitable part of Zlín Film Festival and they became winners of the main festival awards many times. The festival dramaturgy has decided not to include those films into this year´s selection (apart from a few exceptions). Reinhold T. Schöffel is an expert consultant for the children section.
The animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) by Lotte Reiniger from 1926 will be the pearl of the section. The story is based on A Thousand and One Nights fairy tales and it is the oldest preserved animated film which also Walter Ruttmann cooperated on. We of course could not have omitted film adaptations of famous books for children written by Erich Kästner either. You can thus look forward to Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive) from 1931, Two Times Lotte (Das doppelte Lottchen) from 1950 or The Flying Classroom (Das fliegende Klassenzimmer) by the last year´s main jury member and director of a lot of German children films Tomy Wiganda. Let´s not forget the children road movie Flussfahrt mit Huhn from 1980s by the director Arend Agthe who will personally present not only this older film but also his newest work My Friend Raffi (Rette Raffi). It will also be a very exciting experience to watch on screen the Oriental Story of Little Mook (Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck) from 1953 – the most successful German film ever, which sold more than 12 million tickets.
The world cinematography classic The Bridge (Die Brücke) from 1959 by Bernhard Wicki represents the most precious piece in the selection of German works for youth. This anti-war story about grammar school students thrown right into the war fury has been still shown at schools and belongs among the most suggestive films of this genre. The movie Before the Fall (Napola) from 2004, which was being shot mainly in the Czech Republic, also has the Second World War as its main topic. We can find a certain connection to Zlín in the actors version of the German literature fantasy Krabat (Krabat) written by Otfried Preußler and directed by Marc Kreuzpaintner starring world famous Daniel Brühl and promising David Kross and Paula Kalenberg, who was Zlin Young Star last year. Daniel Brühl acts the main role also in another film of this selection, Lessons of a Dream (Der Ganz Grosse Traum) about beginnings of football in Germany. The youth selection, which consists mainly of serious topics, will be enlivened by popular genre of teenage comedy in the films Single by Contract (Groupies bleiben nicht zum Frühstück) and Summer Storm (Sommersturm), which will be presented in Zlín by its director MARCO KREUZPAINTNER and one of its main heroes ROBERT STADLOBER, who comes back to Zlín after more than ten years. On the contrary, GEDEON BURKHARD, the German actor known to Czech audience mainly as a policeman in the favourite Inspector Rex series, is visiting Zlín for the first time this year. He plays as a supporting actor in Wunderkinder by Markus Rosenmüller, a story about three children bound by love for classical music and separated by Nazi invasion to Ukraine.
German Choice is a selection of German as well as world cinematography classics. It is meant for adult audience and also for students and film lovers generally. German film history offers too many great pieces for such a small mini section. Our aim is thus to present works by the best directors and enable audience to get the picture of Germany from the historical, social, political, literary and art point of view. From the silent era we have chosen the classic of German expressionism The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari) and the legend of German literature Faust shot by the renowned director Friedrich W. Murnau in 1926. The New German Wave will be represented for instance by the films Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) by Werner Herzog starring Klaus Kinski, or by 1974 Cannes winner Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. We can´t of course omit the three German Oscar winners for the best foreign film – the film adaptation of Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) written by recently deceased Günter Grass and directed by Volker Schlöndorff, the biographical story of a Jewish family Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Africa) by Caroline Link and the outstanding drama from the 1980s East Germany The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderes) by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The Second World War topic will be presented also in Frank Bayer´s Jakob the Liar (Jakob, der Lügner), the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia co-production film starring Vlastimil Brodský. If you come to see The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher), a film from an attractive environment of banknotes counterfeiters from Nazi Germany, you will also have a possibility to meet its main role actor KAREL MARKOVIC.
Berlin, the City of Stories, is a special mini section offering some spectatorial lures like the nostalgic Good bye, Lenin, the iconic Run Lola Run (Lola rennt) by Tom Tykwer, the shocking We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo), or the unforgettable Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) by another world cinematography luminary Wim Wenders. This mini section will be accompanied by a mini exhibition of film posters Filmstadt Berlin, borrowed from the cooperating Goethe Institute in Prague.
There are plenty of films for children and youth shot in Germany every year and last year was not an exception. That is why we have decided to dedicate one part of Days of German Cinema to these new deeds including the latest ones from this year. One of its subparts could be called Comebacks since the story of Miky and her horse Windstorm (Ostwind) is coming back to Zlín film screen only after a year. Last year´s German Young Star Tim Oliver Schultz plays the role of a vampire-rocker in the sequel Vampire Sisters 2 – Bats in the Belly (Vampirschwestern 2 – Fledermäuse im Bauch) about adventures of the two girls. Gwendolyn, the time traveller from the film Rubinrot will search for a family secret again in the sequel Sapphire Blue (Saphireblau). Dessau Dancers – The Incredible Story of Breakdance in East Germany (Dessau Dancers) about difficult beginnings of break dance lovers in East Germany will surely be an interesting film not only for an older generation audience.
