The new German cinema thrives
by Svetlana Guineva
The Metropolitan
On a pleasant Saturday morning, a handful of people gathered in the Cambridge Room at the Warwick Hotel in Denver. It was cozy; the atmosphere was unpretentious and everyone seemed relaxed. Some were sipping hot coffee, others were eyeing the donuts, seductively exposed on a small table.
The medley, breathing in the same room as one, was welded by one thing-an almost fanatic love for the art of film.
The occasion: casual talk about the New German Cinema Movement, featured at the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival.
Devoted cinema groupies were among those gathered. They had come to indulge in the possibility to ask questions and get answers directly from the sellers of dreams, fantasies and desires-the filmmakers themselves.
On the opposite side sat directors Nina Grosse and Stefan Hillebrand, and an actress, Isolde Fischer, all freshly flown in from Germany. Their bloodshot eyes revealed the long, sleepless hours and the toll the time difference had taken on them. They were tired, but friendly.
"When I started (making movies) 13 years ago, it was really a wasteland (in regard to filmmaking)," Grosse said. "There was a big gap between the forefathers and the contemporary directors; we couldn't follow the tradition with the same-strength movies." By 1962, the filmmaking industry in West Germany was in decline. With only 63 features produced a year, most of them with questionable quality, the country was unable to compete in the world market dominated by the United States.
To save the day, a group of young German directors wrote and signed the Oberhausen Manifesto declaring that the old German cinema was dead: "Papas Kino ist tod (Papa's movies are dead)."
They started making short films that dealt with the problems of post-war society, the alienation of the youth, and the moral damage of the Nazi legacy.
The German filmgoers rejected the new movement as being too political and deprived of artistic and entertainment value.
"I remember there was a time when none of my friends wanted to see a German-made movie," Grosse said. " However, the situation has changed since then."
Denver viewers saw 18 contemporary German films.
"Olga's Summer" is Grosse's 11th film. She is 46, with a radiant smile that is simply contagious. The energy that flows from her gesticulation, her confident posture and impeccable English reveal the strength of her character. But then, the way her blond hair falls across her forehead, somehow, gives away her sensibility.
Grosse's film is a contemporary fairy tale about the Prince Charming who comes to the rescue of a bored princess. Olga is 16 and lives in a small town where nothing seems to change; she is curious about life and sex, and dreams about someone exciting to take her away and show her some good times. One day he does come, but is a little suicidal, grieving over his cheating wife. After pulling him out of his wrecked car, Olga promises that within 10 days in her company he'll forget about his wife. He did.
Grosse wrote the script and said it was not autobiographical, but reflected the nostalgia she felt about her youth. A romance with a stranger away from the world is a fantasy every woman has, she said laughing.
Her smile vanished, though, when she recalled the difficulties of completing the film. Somewhere down the road she ran out of money and had to cut the budget and the crew, respectively.
Grosse and her colleague Stefan Hillebrand agreed that to be a filmmaker in Germany today is not an easy task. Private funding virtually doesn't exist, because most of the produced films are hardly box-office successes on the home market, the directors complained. There is funding on a local state/province level, where only locally shot projects are subsidized.
"There are programs for the newcomers to help them get started, whereas the old directors fall off the plate," Grosse said. "It's completely crazy."
What appeared to be crazy was what Hillebrand did while making his "When the Right One Comes Along." The director improvised the whole film, shooting without a script and with a very low budget. It took him six weeks to finish the filming that began in Mannheim, Germany and was completed in Turkey.
Paula, played exceptionally by Isolde Fischer, is a 30-year-old cleaning lady who falls in love with the security guard at her building. She thinks he is the "Right One," but he, unfortunately, doesn't have a clue. Pressed by his father, one day Mustafa leaves for his native Turkey without saying goodbye. Paula, as proof that love is a trigger for crazy moves, embarks on a journey to Turkey, determined to track the "Right One" down. And she does. But, alas, he is already married.
"The film has a happy ending for Paula," Fischer explained. "She stops living in her dream."
Fischer found great inspiration in Paula's character.
"She (Paula) is one of those ordinary people with strong beliefs and values. A big heart," the actress said.
This perception gave her the energy to improvise every day, with no script or lines to memorize.
Hillebrand also talked about his financial saga and what it took to raise funds to materialize his idea.
Grosse shared with the guests the fact that there is some cultural stagnation present in Germany, which is defined by recent economic downs the country is going through.
"People are depressed and that affects their artistic expression," she said. "German people today have really low self-esteem."
Consequently, on the other side of town, Patrick Hackett waited for the clock to hit the half hour past 12. Somewhat isolated from the chatting crowd gathered before the Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, he stood silent in his black leather jacket.
He took frequent drags off his Camels with the rhythm of his own breathing.
Patrick Hackett was nervous. His short film "Slave to the Grind" was officially selected to be shown as a part of the Colorado Filmmakers Showcase II.
His whole family was there to see it.
Hackett, 27, a native of Ohio, made this film to explore his coffee addiction in an original, whimsical way. Together with his audience he laughs at himself-something that requires a great deal of wisdom and maturity. Which he has.
"I love to explore and exaggerate parts of my life," he said smiling.
The director wrote the script and shot it with a budget coming out of his own pocket.
Hackett talks about himself as being an "actors' director." He explains it as a process of creating characters for his actors-to take them to places they've never been, because they are the ones who translate the director's idea.
"I think it is easy to be a filmmaker in America," he said. " You have complete artistic freedom. The opportunities are there; it all comes down to how badly you want it."
One can make films anywhere; there are still great stories to be told, Hackett thinks.
And he is determined to prove it by already working on his next project - his first feature-length film. |
