Self-confident and beaming – that’s the image of the new generation of German filmmakers. At the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, six-foot-tall Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck raises his long arm into the air brandishing his Oscar as if to say, “Look, here I am, and I deserved this”. During the 2008 German Film Prize presentations, Fatih Akin had to go up on stage four times. His dramatic film The Edge of Heaven won the coveted Lola in gold for the best film and three more prizes for best director, best screenplay and best editing. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” was all he could say into the microphone the fourth time round, delighted and proud amidst all the flashing lights and the applause. German cinema has real stars once again. And above all, it has really good films.
Gripping stories, often topical, authentic material, great professionalism, and the will and talent to address a large audience – that is what the new generation of German directors aged between early 30s and mid-40s have in common. They often tell stories from real life, about Germany, everyday life, love, family, power and seduction, about life between different cultures, and about topics from recent history. “These filmmakers aren’t afraid to go out and look at the burning issues,” says Alfred Holighaus, head of the section Perspectives on German Cinema at the Berlinale. Their stories are often serious – but they tell them directly, in a moving way, and without a trace of moralizing or a hint of tearfulness.
And these serious themes go down well abroad: German cinema is again a “fixed quantity” at festivals from Cannes to Sundance. And this upturn for German cinema has been maintained since 2003, the year Caroline Link won the foreign Oscar for Nowhere in Africa, and Good Bye, Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker triumphed at the European Film Awards. One year later, Fatih Akin made a spectacular conquest of the jury members at the Berlinale, the German and the European Film Awards with Head On. In 2007 an Oscar went to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Life of Others, a GDR-Stasi spy drama. Fatih Akin followed, at the Cannes Film Festival, with the prize for the best screenplay for The Edge of Heaven. In 2008 Andreas Dresen received a special prize for Cloud 9, an unusual love story about a mature couple, and Christian Petzold’s Jerichow was entered in the main competition at the Venice Biennale. His tragic eternal-triangle-story about an unemployed ex-soldier is set in rural eastern Germany. He did not win a prize, but received a lot of praise from the critics. “The basic difference to previous years is that there is a continuity of good films,” said film connoisseur Holighaus.
A lot of these films are successful not just artistically, but also commercially. The Life of Others has meantime been sold to more than 130 countries. And in the first six months of 2008, a total of five German feature films broke the one million mark in Germany. It is clear that Akin, Donnersmarck & Co. are altogether determined to reach a large audience.
“While filming North Face I knew it was a genre that would possibly lure a lot of people into cinemas,” said Munich-based director Philipp Stölzl. His mountain drama, showing in cinemas since autumn 2008, is set in the 1930s. “An adventure film, spine-chilling, dramatic, steeped in contemporary politics, a great theme, genuine cinema.” Stölzl tells the story of a failure in powerful images, gripping up to the very last minute, including 40 screenplay-pages of snowstorm. This is no action spectacle, but a film that seems so real, you could believe you were up there climbing with them in the ice. “Ultimately we all make those films we would like to see ourselves,” is how Oscar-winner Donnersmarck sums up this recipe for success.
