USSR 1976, 110 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Larisa Shepitko
Cast: Boris Plotnikow, Wladimir Gostjukhin, Ljudmila Poljakowa
Series: NEWS FROM THE ARCHIVE
Vasil Bykau was luckier than most writers, for cinema treated this master of Great Patriotic War-fiction mighty well: for almost all films based on his novels and stories turned out splendidly, even if their directors came almost all from the industry’s second echelon; Bykau, it seems, inspired the best in each. Which is also true for geniuses, as this corpus’ lone masterpiece: VOSKHOZHDENIYE, was created by one of the most unpredictable and daring souls of USSR cinema: Larisa Shepitko, who outdid herself here.
October 29, 1 p.m., Gartenbaukino
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Portugal/France/Brazil 2018, 92 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt,
Cast: Carloto Cotta, Cleo Tavares, Anabela Moreira
Diamantino is a world class footballer with an idiosyncratic secret of success: when he has his moments in a game the world around him transforms into a fluffy cloud and giant Pekinese puppies are running playfully around him. Then one day, unfortunately during the World Cup, the fluffy cloud doesn’t materialize, Diamantino misses the penalty kick, his crying face is instantly turned into a meme and becomes the laughing stock of social media. As he retreats into his castle-like residency, his problems only get worse.
In the presence of Daniel Schmidt.
October 29, 8.30 p.m., Gartenbaukino • October 30, 6.30 p.m., Urania
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Great Britain/USA/Germany 2018, 92 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Werner Herzog, André Singer
Cast: Michail Gorbatschow, Werner Herzog, Miklós Németh
Few political concepts captivated the world as much as “perestroika.” Although there’s not one person responsible for the falling dominoes that was the Eastern Bloc in its final stages, if we were to name but one, that title would go to Mikhail Gorbachev. Such sentiment guides MEETING GORBACHEV, the latest documentary from the master of the form, Werner Herzog, co-directed with André Singer. The film, centered around the direct interview with Gorbachev as he looks back on his career, is a passionate and at times deeply personal homage, an expression of measured hope, at a time when democracy is again at risk in Europe and beyond.
October 30., 6 p.m., Gartenbaukino • November 11, 4 p.m., Urania
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Italy/USA/France 2018, 123 Min, OV, D: Roberto Minervini,
Cast: Kevin Goodman, Dorothy Hill, Ashlei King
In Focus: ROBERTO MINERVINI
Roberto Minervini’s most recent film, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, marks a striking departure. WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE? is the director’s first black-and-white film, and for the first time, he portrays the residents of a black neighborhood. In his film, set against the backdrop of a series of violent crimes and a brutal murder committed by the Ku Klux Klan, Minervini follows the actions of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in New Orleans.
In the presence of Roberto Minervini und Paolo Benzi.
October 30, 8 p.m., Gartenbaukino • November 1, 3.30 p.m., Filmmuseum (Last Minute)
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Argentina 1986, 59 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Jorge Acha
Cast: Jorge Díez, Luis Nieto, Óscar Bernales
In Focus: JORGE ACHA
In Acha’s first feature, HABEAS CORPUS, the offscreen context is Pope John Paul II’s first visit to Argentina during that country’s most recent civil-military dictatorship. The Pope is not seen, but he is heard. As it happens, a guard working in a clandestine detention center has the radio on and listens to the broadcast of the various religious services offered to worshippers by the highest representative of God on Earth; the highest military authorities are among those present in the services. The sounds of faith stand in contrast to the images in that horror chamber. A naked man in a cell conveys to us an intuition – his fate is not that different to the pains suffered, many centuries before, by the Son of God.
October 29, 6 p.m., Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus
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South Korea 2017, 66 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Hong Sangsoo
Cast: Kim Minhee, Ki Joobong, Kim Saebyuk
Almost always, Hong Sangsoo’s universe is organized the same way: Men and women who seduce each other (or, at least, want to) but are unable to understand each other; all of them are relatively well educated, because they belong to the world of arts (film, theater, or literature), and the preferred meeting point is always a bar and, therefore, the action is limited to drinking soju and having conversations. Novelty, this time, lies on the proliferation of couples unexpectedly added to the tale in order to discuss love-related subjects.
October 29, 8.30 p.m., Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus • November 6, 1.30 p.m., Urania
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Italy 2018, 125 min, OV with English subtitles, D: Yervant Gianikian, Angela Ricci Lucchi
Cast: Yervant GianikianAngela Ricci Lucchi
The death of Angela Ricci Lucchi early this year didn’t come out of the blue: She was aware of the fact that her days were numbered, as the last scenes of I DIARI DI ANGELA show; and as always, she kept her calm in the face of the inevitable, so as to better appreciate things for the last time, like harvesting some fruits she knew she wouldn’t get to taste herself. She probably knew that her companion, Yervant Gianikian, would create this cenotaph in memory of the decades they’d shared. The latter being the key word here: I DIARI DI ANGELA is a film about the two of them, always together since the mid-1970’s, thus starting with moments from a short she started and he finished with superimpositions – a perfect image for their symbiotic relationship. Gianikian chose to delve not too deeply into their artistic process – or maybe he does when he shows them walking through ruins in Sarajevo looking at the devastation around, or drinking and singing with Walter Chiari in Armenia.
In the presence of Yervant Gianikian.
October 28, 8.30 p.m., Metro, Eric Pleskow Saal • October 29, 6 p.m., Filmmuseum
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USA 1943, 66 min, OV, D: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Dennis O’Keefe, Jean Brooks
Retrospective THE B-FILM
As the third and final film directed by Jacques Tourneur for the legendary Val Lewton, THE LEOPARD MAN forges a striking trilogy by profoundly extending and responding to the earlier two films, CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. Besides the deceptively lurid titles imposed upon Lewton by RKO, the three films share a similar tone and thematic, each offering brooding and melancholy fables meditating on outsiderness, mortality and the specter of an inexorable yet arbitrary fate. These are, of course, major themes that resonate across the rest of Lewton’s RKO productions and Tourneur’s later films. In THE LEOPARD MAN, however, these themes are given a new dimension by a radical narrative strategy that deliberately denies the spectator any fixed character identification and profoundly reorientates the terms of the supernatural mystery genre so successfully invented by the previous two Tourneur-Lewton’s films.
October 29, 9 p.m., Filmmuseum • November 14, 6.30 p.m., Filmmuseum
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D 1921, 105 min, silent film (intertitles in German and English), D: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Cast: Adele Reuter Eichberg, Wladimir Gajdarow, Sylvia Torff
Special Program: SURVIVING IMAGES
Based on Aage Madelung’s successful novel “Elsker hverandre” (“Love one another”), director Carl Theodor Dreyer depicts the eve of the first revolution and Tsarist Russia in his film DIE GEZEICHNETEN (LOVE ONE ANOTHER), which was shot in and around Berlin. There are already signs of change, but resentment against the Jewish population still runs deep. The young Jewess Hanna-Liebe leaves her home village to live with her brother in St. Petersburg. She meets her old friend Sascha again, who has meanwhile joined a revolutionary group in which a devious spy plays his evil game. Soon Hanna-Liebe and Sascha find themselves in the midst of violent rioting …
Live music: ZSAMM
October 29, 6.45 p.m., Metro, Historischer Saal
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