News

91-year-old German filmmaker Edgar Reitz, best known for the influential Heimat trilogy, has started shooting his latest film Leibniz, a portrait of leading Enlightenment thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

A German polymath and one of the founders of calculus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the most important thinkers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Leibniz recounts five days in his life in the winter of 1704/05, when he is supposed to sit for a portrait painter at Herrenhausen Palace. When the session fails, a young female painter from the Netherlands takes over. She sets herself the task of capturing...

Kinobetreiber erhalten im Umfeld des Filmfest München wieder die Gelegenheit, von einer Gruppe von Verleihern Programmhighlights präsentiert zu bekommen. Heute wurde der Timetable veröffentlicht.

Studiocanal feiert mit „Die Fotografin” Europapremiere beim Filmfest München (Credit: Studiocanal)

Vom 2. bis 4. Juli lädt eine Gruppe von Verleihern am Rande des Filmfest München wieder zu Screenings und Tradeshows ein. Alle Kinobetreiber:innen sind dazu herzliche eingeladen. Jetzt steht der zeitliche Ablauf fest. Bei den Verleihern handelt es sich um 24 Bilder, Alamode Film, Alpenrepublik, Filmwelt Verleihagentur, Grandfilm, Majestic, Studiocanal und Tobis. Die Screenings finden in in den City Kinos, dem Mathäser Filmpalast und dem Theatiner statt.

Dienstag, 2. Juli 10.00 bis 12.00 Uhr City Kinos/AtelierMajestic Tradeshow & Screening“Die Unbeugsamen 2 – Guten Morgen, ihr Schönen!“ (Die Fortsetzung des erfolgreichsten deutschen Arthousefilms 2021 – diesmal über die Frauen in der Ddr)Anmeldungen unter office@majestic.de 13:30 bis 14.00 Uhr Mathäser FilmpalastTOBIS Tradeshow mit exklusivem Filmmaterial aus Kevin Costners mit Spannung erwartetem Western-Epos „Horizon“direkt...

Body swaps are usually bad news in movies. I was a real estate agent close to a big deal, now I have to find a date for junior prom? Then, a wacky journey back to status quo — because the way things were is how they should be.

Or not, forwards “Skin Deep,” the intimate and slippery debut feature from German Kazakhstani director Alex Schaad. Adopting a high concept usually fit for farce, Alex Schaad and his brother, co-writer and actor Dimitrij Schaad, take on the body swap premise in search of more, destabilizing their characters’ notions of gender and bodily autonomy along the way.

Releasing stateside in New York and Los Angeles theaters this month, “Skin Deep” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The premiere was already a dream come true for the brothers; then they won the Queer Lion, a prize voted for by a jury of critics...

The saying goes that in order to understand someone, you have to walk a mile in their shoes, but Alex Schaad’s broad yet entrancing “Skin Deep” offers an alternate method: In order to understand someone, try swapping bodies with them for a few days. That solution might be less efficient, but it’s far more complete. Indeed, the mysterious white tower at the center of the Esalen-like island retreat where this lightly supernatural German drama takes place is nothing if not a machine that creates empathy. It creates other feelings too, but the people who seem most receptive to and transformed by the experience tend to think of empathy as the ultimate goal, if only because they’ve exhausted all other means of achieving it.

These people aren’t sociopaths, they’re just in long-term relationships. They’ve arrived at that sad — but inevitable? — point where the soft intimacy...

Alex Schaad’s Skin Deep is a film with a body-swapping premise that’s notable for its restraint. Though as fresh and conceptually far-reaching as a David Cronenberg film, it traffics in body ambivalence more than body horror, striking an eerie, wistful tone.

The story hinges on the interplay of various couples. The central of these, Leyla (Mala Emde) and Tristan (Jonas Dassler), travel by ferry to a remote and idyllic island where seasonal body-switching rituals take place. There they join Leyla’s friend Stella (Edgar Selge) in the initially jarring form of her elderly father, who recently died while inhabiting Stella’s aneurism-prone body. Leyla’s been suffering from chronic depression, so she and Tristan have decided to give the ritual a try, in the hope that a temporary shift in embodied perspective might help. They’re paired by lottery with another couple: Fabienne (Maryam Zaree) will swap with Leyla,...

"You are the person you are, because of the body you have." Kino Lorber has revealed the new official US trailer for the indie German low key sci-fi drama titled Skin Deep, from filmmaker Alex Schaad. Not to be confused with the 1989 sex comedy with John Ritter also called Skin Deep. This first premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and won the Queer Lion award, with stops at the Hamburg, Zurich, and Göteborg Film Festivals. At first glance, Leyla and Tristan seem like a happy young couple. When they travel to a remote, mysterious island, a game of identities begins, which changes everything – their perception, their sexuality, their whole "self." Kino Lorber adds: "Subverting genre and gender as it toggles from body swap thriller to intimate relationship drama, Skin Deep tells a story that transcends bodies, embracing the endless fluid possibilities in the question of what it means to truly love someone.

What makes a person? Mind or body? Take that line of inquiry even further and ask what it is you love about your significant other. Is it how they look or who they are? The combination of answers to these questions are infinite because we as people are too. Maybe looks or humor or generosity got you through the door, but those can’t stop you from leaving alone. At some point you must dig deeper to discover it’s the indefinable essence beneath their skin and psyche that truly draws you close. And if that’s necessary to be able to spend the rest of your life with this person who was a total stranger mere seconds before you met them, shouldn’t it also be true to love yourself?

The lucky of us who never have to ask often never think to ask, either. It’s why someone...

Cannes competition title Loveless wins best international film.

Films by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pedro Pinho and Tom Lass were among the winners at the 35th Filmfest München which came to a close on Saturday evening with a gala awards ceremony before the German premiere of Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest with actor Bill Nighy and producer Stephen Woolley in attendance.

The €50,000 Arri/Osram award for the best international film in the CineMasters sidebar went to Zvyagintsev’s Cannes competition film Loveless which opened in Russian cinemas through Wdssr on June 1 and will be released in Germany by Wild Bunch.

Producers Alexander Rodnyansky and Serguey Melkumov accepted the award in Munich from the hands of the international jury comprising German director Valeska Grisebach (whose latest feature Western premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in May), producer Markus Zimmer, and actress Nastassja Kinski.

This is the second time Zvyagintsev received the Munich award after his previous feature Leviathan had won...

Wetlands has released a new trailer.

David Wnendt's scatological German film won critical acclaim when it screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Based on Charlotte Roche's novel Feuchtgebiete, the film centres around Helen (Carla Juri), a young woman proudly disinterested in hygiene.

When a shaving accident sees her confined to hospital, she uses her time to mix fantasy and reality and flirt with a handsome nurse.

Christoph Letkowski, Meret Becker, Axel Milberg, Marlen Kruse and Edgar Selge also star in the film.

Wetlands will receive a limited release in the Us from September 5. It is yet to announce a UK release date.

New films by actor-director Matthias Schweighofer, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Robert Glinski, and Bettina Oberli are among the titles being lined up by German sales agents Global Screen and Picture Tree International (Pti) for the Marché du Film in Cannes next month.

Munich-based Global Screen will be unveiling five market premieres:

actor-director/producer Schweighofer’s third directorial outing, the romantic comedy Joy Of Fatherhood (Vaterfreuden), adapted from Murmel Clausen’s novel Frettsack, was released by Warner Bros. Pictures Germany in February, has been seen by more than 2.3 million cinemagoers and taken more than €17.7m ($24.5m) to date.

the 2D and 3D versions of the English-language animated feature The Seventh Dwarf (Der 7bte Zwerg), directed by Harald Siepermann and actor Boris Aljinovic, to be released by Universal Pictures in Germany this autumn.The film was also presold to many territories, including

Christian Bach’s feature debut, the coming of age/family drama Flights Of Fancy (Hirngespinster), which received Bavarian Film Awards...

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner, and the Sundance Institute has released the full line-up for the competition films that will be premiering!

This year there were 12,218 total submissions, and 117 films were accepted from 37 countries around the world. It looks like there's a lot of good selection of films this year.

The Sundance Film Festival 2014 runs from January 16th to the 26th, and the GeekTyrant team will be there to cover as many movies as we possibly can.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.

“Camp X-Ray” — Directed and written by Peter Sattler. A young female guard at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch.

“Cold in July” — Directed by Jim Mickle, written by Nick Damici.

Sundance Film Festival continues to be one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most important, events on the industry calendar, launching as it does some of the most prominent independent films at the start of each year.

This year will be no different, with Sundance announcing last night the initial line-up of films screening in competition, led by Song One, starring Anne Hathaway; Camp X-Ray, starring Kristen Stewart; Infinitely Polar Bear, with Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana; Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg himself; The Skeleton Twins, with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, and Ty Burrell; Life After Beth, with Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, and John C. Reilly; Listen Up Philip, with Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss; Whiplash, starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons; and many, many more.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films,...

God’S Pocket

Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition section of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “That the Festival has evolved and grown as it has over the past 30 years is a credit to both our audiences and our artists, who continue to find ways to take risks and open our minds to the power of story. This year’s films and artists promise to do the same.”

For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at...

It’s among the two sections that we usually don’t put much focus on (yes, we love subtitles, but we’re more concerned, naturally more inclined to cover the deluge of American Indie film offerings) but among the dozen film selections in the World Cinema Dramatic Comp section we find the latest from Argentinean director Natalia Smirnoff (she gave us the Berlin Film Fest winner The Puzzle) who returns with Lock Charmer, we find the highly anticipated film from Hong Khaou (Lilting) and a title which we start speculating on last year in Stuart Murdoch’s God Help the Girl which stars Emily Browning, Olly Alexander and Hannah Murray (see pic above). Also worth the mention is the directing debut from writer Eskil Vogt – who co-wrote Reprise and Oslo, August 31st for Joachim Trier. Here are the dozen selected.

“52 Tuesdays” (Australia) — Directed by Sophie Hyde, written by Matthew Cormack.

The U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competition lineups for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival were announced today and just below I have featured pictures from the 16 films that will be competing in the U.S. Dramatic competition and they feature a lot of names you're going to recognize. The titles begin with Camp X-Ray, which stars Kristen Stewart as a guard in Guantanamo Bay, where she forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Jim Mickle made an impact earlier this year with We Are What We Are and he returns with Michael C. Hall with Cold in July. Fishing Without Nets looks to tell a story similar to that of Captain Phillips, only this time from the Somali side of things; God's Pocket is "Mad Men" star John Slattery's writing and directorial debut and he's lined up an impressive cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins,...

The early favorite to win the grand prize at the 25th Montreal World Film Festival and a controversial boxoffice hit in Europe since it opened in March, "The Experiment" is a riveting but far from perfect directorial debut from German television director Oliver Hirschbiegel. With another excellent performance by rising star Moritz Bleibtreu ("Run Lola Run", "In July") and a strong appeal to young-adult audiences, it has at least a fighting chance to lock up a domestic distribution deal.

Evoking such recent violent flicks as "Fight Club" and "Battle Royale", as well as reality TV shows like "Big Brother", the scenario is based on co-screenwriter Mario Giordano's novel "Black Box", inspired by a real Stanford University test simulating the conditions of a prison in order to psychologically probe the roles adopted by guards and prisoners.

While the filmmaking is steely and the performances by the ensemble cast believable enough given the escalating nastiness, the story hinges on several unbelievable acts of negligence by the experimenters. Consequently, one leaves the theater with little to ponder except the obvious: Going to prison can be like going to hell, and voluntarily doing so -- even under controlled circumstances -- is a heck of a way to earn a buck.

But that's what lures most of the participants in Cologne, who answer newspaper ads and undergo tests and seemingly minimal training for the two-week experiment. Tarek (Bleibtreu) is a taxi driver who walked away from a reporter's gig. For him, the opportunity is a good story in the making, and his former boss agrees. Equipped with glasses that contain a tiny camera, Tarek takes the plunge with his own agenda and becomes one of the "prisoners."

One of his cellmates (Christian Berkel) also is there not by accident, but these two good guys are almost done in by the guards, who become far too serious in their approach to a power struggle that ensues. Tarek, in jerk mode, inflames the situation by humiliating the wrong sadist, Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), but the academics in charge are guilty of changing the rules that allow anyone to leave at any time they request.

With the prisoners sinking into depressed and caged-animal states of mind, the guards become intoxicated, break rules and vindictively start asserting their authority. At first, they find nonviolent ways (per the rules) to discipline rabble-rousers like Tarek and a prisoner who refuses to drink milk for medical reasons. But one thing leads to another, and Berus makes several absurd leaps of logic to cause the "experiment" to spin murderously out of control.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers find no way to reach the bloody final act except by sending away the responsible project monitors (Edgar Selge, Andrea Sawatzki) at the exact wrong moment. Likewise, one of the crucial players is a woman (Maren Eggert) whom Tarek met when she crashed her car into his taxi early in the film. Their instant love affair is recounted in flashbacks, and she is inserted awkwardly into the mock prison at two points, including the vicious climax.

There are some deliciously ironic touches -- like the use of The Beach Boys song "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" in decided counterpoint to what appears onscreen -- and one feels much sympathy for the oppressed among the prisoners. But only in Germany, perhaps, would it be possible for a tough case like Berus to inspire instant barbarism on the part of the other guards. In that way, the film plays into cultural stereotypes and further distances the audience from whatever universal truths it is trying to mirror.

THE EXPERIMENT

Senator Entertainment

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Screenwriters: Mario Giordano, Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstadt

Based on the novel by: Mario Giordano

Producers: Norbert Preuss, Marc Conrad, Fritz Wildfeuer

Director of photography: Rainer Klausmann

Production designers: Uli Hanisch, Andrea Kessler

Editor: Hans Funck

Costume designer: Claudia Bobsin

Music: Alexander Van Bubenheim

Color/stereo

Cast:

Tarek Fahd: Moritz Bleibtreu

Berus: Justus von Dohnanyi

Steinhoff: Christian Berkel

Dora: Maren Eggert

Running time -- 120 minutes

No MPAA rating...