NEW YORK – Building on 35 years at the Museum of Modern Art, KINO! reboots at new locations –bringing the latest of German cinema to New York audiences. Programmed by an independent jury, KINO! presents ten films, four of which are North American premieres.
Selected by New York industry professionals Denise Kassell, Ian Stimler and Karl Rozemeyer and organized by Munich-based German Films, KINO! kicks off with the June 12 opening night gala screening of WEST by the critically acclaimed director Christian Schwochow at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens. Having won the FIPRESCI award and the Best Actress award at the Montreal World Film Festival, WEST was picked up for theatrical distribution by Main Street Films and will be released later this year. The festival’s program will be screened daily at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan from June 13-19.
KINO! introduces new elements such as a last minute surprise film and the theatrical run of NAN GOLDIN – I REMEMBER YOUR FACE, a documentary by Sabine Lidl about the New York photographer, which will have daily screenings in Manhattan’s Quad Cinema.
As German Films managing director Mariette Rissenbeek comments on the relaunched festival, “Driving home the forward-thinking curatorial choices of KINO!, which New Yorkers have come to expect, the program boasts three debut filmmakers and four female directors – almost half of the entire program. We’re happy to see that KINO! has launched and nurtured careers from filmmakers such as Christian Schwochow, whose earlier features NOVEMBER CHILD and CRACKS IN THE SHELL were shown in New York. In the same vein, we are supporting young filmmakers with our curated shorts program NEXT GENERATION SHORT TIGER 2014, which will go straight to New York after its world premiere in Cannes.”
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KINO! – Festival of German Films New York, June 12-19
Opening night film, June 12: WEST by Christian Schwochow – East Coast Premiere (Sales: Picture Tree, US distribution: Main Street Films)
WEST will have a theatrical release in the second half of this year. Director Christian Schwochow will be present at the screenings and is available for interviews.
East Berlin, summer 1978 and Nelly Senff packs a few suitcases into a Volkswagen. Aleksej, her nine-year old son, takes only a teddy bear. On the pretext that she’s married a man from West Berlin, they drive to the west, hoping to start a new life. Based on the novel by Julia Franck, WEST explores how the great promise of “the golden West” is slowly eroded.
June 13-19: NAN GOLDIN – I REMEMBER YOUR FACE by Sabine Lidl – New York Premiere, daily screenings Jun 13-19 (Sales: Medea Film)
Director Sabine Lidl will be present at the screenings and is available for interviews.
Documentarian Sabine Lidl’s intimate portrait of New York photographer Nan Goldin is as uncompromising and unvarnished as the snapshots that have come to define Goldin as arguably one of the most influential, celebrated and controversial photographers of her generation. The result is a personal, incautious and thoroughly engaging view of the artist at work and at play.
Program June 13-19:
ANYWHERE ELSE (by Ester Amrami – North American premiere (Sales: HFF Konrad Wolf)
Eight years ago Noa came to Berlin. Now she is about to graduate from university and has recently moved in with Jörg, her German boyfriend. But suddenly she experiences a personal crisis. Noa feels misunderstood and isolated. She doesn’t recognize her own self anymore. ANYWHERE ELSE tells Noa´s search for her place in life in a touching manner, that combines drama and comedy. The movie is carried by its devotion to the protagonists and at the same time it makes the audience contemplate universal themes such as language, homeland and love.
A PACT by Denis Dercourt – East Coast premiere (Sales: Global Screen)
As boys growing up in former East Germany in the early 1980s, Paul and Georg are singled out by an 11th-grade teacher for their approaches to a problem. Georg’s work is “serious and methodical.” Paul is “unerringly intuitive.” While these traits later define them as men, it is a childhood that pact forever shapes their lives.
ART WAR by Marco Wilms – North American premiere (Sales: Heldenfilm)
Director Marco Wilms will be present at the screenings and is available for interviews.
In the wake of the uprising that swept Mubarak’s regime from power in January 2011, young artists take to the streets of Cairo, believing art can be a weapon for change and a revolution can be powerful without violence. Filmmaker Marco Wilms equates the significance of the Arab Spring with the fall of the Berlin Wall but, having spent two years documenting the work of graffiti artists, musicians, poets and writers, he witnesses their dream of a new era devolve into a burning inferno as they clash with the military and extreme religious factions. ART WAR is an eye-opening exploration of how political unrest collides with art and social media, allowing war-zone artists to reach new audiences in new ways.
BANKLADY by Christian Alvart – East Coast premiere (Sales: Global Screen)
It’s 1966 and 30-year-old Gisela Werler, stuck in a dead-end job at Hamburg wallpaper factory, dreams of escaping to the isle of Capri. Then she meets suave and cocksure Hermann, a cab driver who moonlights as a bank robber. Their attraction is mutual and magnetic. She pleads with Hermann to let her join him on his bank heists. Using striking visuals including inventive split screens, Christian Alvart, director of the serial killer thriller Antibodies and the sci-fi horror Pandorum, meticulously replicates the ’60s era in a fast-paced thriller that remains vivid and stylish from start to finish.
FINSTERWORLD by Frauke Finsterwald – East Coast premiere (Sales: Global Screen)
Director Frauke Finsterwald and author Christian Kracht will be present at the screenings and is available for interviews.
FINSTERWORLD tells the story of pedicurist Claude Petersdorf who harbours a special fondness for the feet of his female clients and reveals himself to Ms. Sandberg who lives in an old people‘s home. Documentary filmmaker Franziska Feldenhoven wants to make a film about the realities of German council housing, which proves to be beyond boring.
HANNA´S JOURNEY by Julia von Heinz – New York premiere (Sales: Media Luna)
Director Julia von Heinz will be present at the screenings and is available for interviews.
Hanna goes to Israel in order to push her career by working with disabled people. Itay, the Israeli social worker picks on Hanna with Holocaust jokes and cynical comments on German history, whilst obviously flirting with her. She initially reacts with rejection, but after a while she becomes interested in her family’s history, and also in Itay.
WHISPERS BEHIND THE WALL by Grzegorz Muskala – North American premiere
Martin leaves his protective parents’ home and comes to Berlin as a law student with high hopes. He finds a tiny, run-down flat in a strange, dark apartment block, from which the previous tenant has disappeared without a trace. Having no luck with social contacts at the university, Martin quickly falls for his mysterious landlady Simone, who lives just next door behind a thin wall. Hoping to find trust and intimacy, Martin loses himself in the house’s disturbing world of sex and violence. Deep in the walls, Martin discovers the true horror of his first love.
THE WOMAN WHO DARES by Marc Rensing – North American premiere (Sales: Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion)
Beate was once the GDR’s fastest female swimmer. Now, she has a menial laundry job. Having placed her needs and wants in life on a backburner, she devotes most of her free time to her grown children. Her ambitious goal is to swim through the Channel. This is not only a bold venture because of her age – she is a fifty-year-old woman – but also because she has been diagnosed cancer and doesn’t have much time left. Skilfully directed by Marc Rensing, THE WOMAN WHO DARES is the story of one woman’s determination and courage to take control of her dreams in the face of crushing adversity.
NEXT GENERATION SHORT TIGER 2014- a program of Germany’s best shorts as selected by an expert jury which included Oscar-winner Caroline Link (NOWHERE IN AFRICA). More information at: http://www.kinofestivalnyc.com/films/next-generation-short-tiger-2014/
SURPRISE FILM – to be announced closer to the festival