The German Focus contributes to this year’s Rwanda Film Festival theme, “Our Mother’s Our Heroes”, with a special view on German female filmmakers and female protagonists in cooperation with IWFF – Dortmund | Cologne International Women’s Film Festival.
Ten feature films will present some of the most well known directors like Hermine Huntgeburth, Sandra Nettelbeck, Pia Marais and Maren Ade and actresses like Martina Gedeck, Nina Hoss, Sandra Hüller and Birgit Minichmayr.
Each film had its cinema release in Germany and the lot won several prestigious awards. From classic thriller and drama, to romance and comedy; from films of ‘the Berlin School’ to documentary, the themes and genres of the German Focus are deeply human and eclectic. They focus on women in different roles and positions in society.
While the documentary 11 FRIENDS shows the inner life of the girls of the German women’s national football team, MISS STINNES MOTORS ROUND THE WORLD tells the story of the first woman to circle the world by car, including original footage
from her expedition in 1927.
Several films deal with topics of Germany’s recent history: BARBARA is a doctor working in 1980s East Germany who finds herself banished to a small country hospital because she wants to emigrate to the West.
The comedy,
ALMANYA, spans a period of 45 years to portray a turkish family arriving as “guest workers” at the end of the 60s to Germany, later returning for a journey to their old country. Another comedy, MOSTLY MARTHA, tells the story of a female supreme ruler of the kitchen staff, who suddenly has to care for her young niece.
Silver Bear-winner, EVERYONE ELSE, is an intimate love story of a couple in search of their own identity. Two further films deal with cultural differences in mixed relationships: while the most successful German film of the year 2005, THE WHITE MASAI, tells the autobiographical story of a Swiss woman meeting a Samburu warrior in Kenya, the documentary THE CROCODILES OF THE WANDAOGO FAMILY, follows the journeys of German director Britta Wandaogo and her daughter Kaddi to her husband’s home village in Burkina Faso.
Several years later, Kaddi reflects the role she plays in her German and African families in the short film CROCODILES WITHOUT SADDLES.
Recently released in German cinemas, the thriller, LAYLA FOURIE, is set in South Africa, where director Pia Marais was born and raised. It deals with the problems of society’s mistrust and a single mother, whose daily life is affected by paranoia and fear.
The film was given a “Special Mention” by the International Jury during this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
While those films present a broad spectrum of social themes in today’s cinematic work of Germany, the Focus as a special introduction will present the documentary, GERMANY FROM ABOVE, which takes the audience on a journey with spectacular aerial shots of nature and cities of Germany, discovering the country from a bird’s eye view. Seen from above, you get a wider perspective of the setting, of time and history. We hope to see you all in the cinemas!
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