Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) continues more than 15 years of co-operation with the Goethe-Institut by screening 11 German films and the first two episodes of the high-budget German TV series Babylon Berlin in the initiative Goethe-Institut presents: New German Films.
Babylon Berlin will be part of the new programme of the festival called TV Beats, that will bring fresh TV-series to the big screen. The 16 episode series adapted from Volker Kutscher is one of the most expensive drama series ever created for television, following a young police officer during the decadent and glamorous years of the ill-fated Weimar Republic.
Leading the film lineup is Different Kinds of Rain that will have it’s world premiere in the festival’s First Feature competition, directed by Isabel Prahl, it is a depiction of a family dealing with the repercussions that ensue after the 18-year-old son isolates himself in his room.
Another debuting female director is Nina Vukovic with the thriller Detour that will have its international premiere at Black Nights, having received strong support from the critics after its world premiere in Munich this summer.
The selection also includes the biographic documentary Beuys (director Andres Veiel) and In Times of Fading Light (director Matti Geschonneck) that premiered at Berlinale, Axolotl Overkill, debut by Helene Hegemann that had its world premiere at Sundance and the Locarno-premiering Neolithic revenge thriller Iceman by director Felix Randau.
According to the programme coordinator on PÖFF’s side Christoph Grönerdecisive impulses in German cinema are coming from female filmmakers. Axolotl Overkill has to be named here, with the uncompromising vision of Helene Hegemann. Berlin on screen, like never seen before, pure Zeitgeist. And the world premiere in the first feature competition here at the Black Nights Film Festival is yet another superbly fresh example of female filmmaking: The formally astounding Different Kinds of Rain by Isabel Prahl.
He added: ‘Another trend has emerged this year: A new urge towards the fantastic, away from the social realist cinema of former years, becomes palpable. Lighting becomes more expressionistic, dream sequences occur more often, apocalyptic themes are touched upon, dark spots in characters get explored. Without doubt, there is a new lust for genre, for stranger and wilder tastes and the Black Nights Film Festival and the Goethe-Institut have picked up this trend in their German selection.’
Also, the programme coordinator of the Goethe-Institut in Estonia Markus Köcher is looking forward to this year’s screenings: “We are happy to continue our fruitful co-operation with the Black Nights Film Festival and showing again so many hand-picked film productions from Germany - both in Tallinn and Tartu. Many of them will be presented by the directors themselves who will be guests in Estonia.”
Different Kinds of Rain (1000 Arten, den Regen zu beschreiben), Germany, 2017, dir Isabel Prahl - world premiere
Detour, Germany, 2017, dir Nina Vukovic - International premiere
Only A Day (Nur ein Tag), Germany, 2017, dir Martin Baltscheit - International premiere (screens in the programme of children’s and youth film festival Just Film)
Axolotl Overkill, Germany, 2017, dir Helene Hegemann
Babylon Berlin, Germany, 2017, dir Henk Handloegten, Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries
Beuys, Germany, 2017, dir Andres Veiel
Do You Sometimes Feel Burned Out and Empty? (Fühlen sie sich manchmal ausgebrannt und leer?), Germany-Netherlands, 2017, dir Lola Randl
Four Hands (Die Vierhändige), Germany, 2017, dir Oliver Kienle
Iceman (Der Mann aus dem Eis), Germany-Italy-Austria, 2017, dir Felix Randau
In Times of Fading Light, (In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts), Germany, 2017, dir Matti Geschonneck
The Garden, (Sommerhäuser), Germany, 2017, dir Sonja Kröner
Three Peaks (Drei Zinnen), Germany-Italy, 2017, dir Jan Zabeil
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