Torn between lucrative flicks and award-winning drama

German movies triumph either at festivals or at box offices

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18. Februar 2005 By Kristina Merkner

No matter how good the German entries fare at this year's Berlinale film festival - they will have a hard time matching the success of last year, when Fatih Akin's “Head-On“ took home the Golden Bear, the festival's first prize. The drama about Germany's young Turkish generation was also the second German movie in a row to win the European Film Prize after “Good Bye, Lenin!“ prevailed in Barcelona in 2003. That was the same year that Caroline's Link's “Nowhere in Africa“ won the first Academy Award for a German movie in 23 years.

Virtually non-existent on a global scale for years, German film has recently landed a triumphant comeback at festivals worldwide. At the same time, the national film industry has also enjoyed unusual attention at the German box office, where the two movies that attracted the biggest audiences in 2004 were German productions.

But the two blockbusters (T)raumschiff Surprise and Sieben Zwerge - Männer allein im Wald, which rank at the top with audiences of about 9 million and 7 million respectively, are a far cry from the award-winning films of the last two years and also from this year's Berlinale entries.
The box-office hits that make money are shallow flicks produced by German comedians Michael “Bully“ Herbig and Otto Waalkes. (T)raumschiff Surprise is a spoof on Star Trek. The other film, translated as “Seven Dwarfs - Men Alone in the Forest,“ is a story about saving Snow White.

The films that have made it onto international screens tackle such issues as Germany's past - be it National Socialist or colonialist - and its present with all its woes, from terror to immigration.
That also holds true for this year's German films in the Berlinale competition, all three of which would not have been produced without public funding.

In “Ghosts,“ a German-French co-production, director Christian Petzold re-counts the story of a mother whose daughter was abducted as a small child in Berlin. After years of uncertainty, she thinks she has finally found her daughter when she spots a vagrant young woman named Nina.
Marc Rothemund's “Sophie Scholl - The Final Days“ portrays the last six days in the life of the young woman who co-founded “The White Rose,“ a resistance group against Hitler, and was executed by the Nazis in 1943.
Of a somewhat lighter nature is Hannes Stöhr's episodic comedy “One Day in Europe,“ a German-Spanish co-production. Tourists in Moscow, Istanbul, Santiago de Compostela and Berlin fall prey to thieves during the Champion League Finals, and emotions get out of hand in all four cities across Europe.

The German competitors certainly cannot complain about the make-up of this year's jury. It is chaired by German director Roland Emmerich and includes the popular German actress Franka Potente. On Saturday, the panel will announce the winners of this year's Golden Bear and six Silver Bears, as well as the Blue Angel for the best European film and the Alfred Bauer Prize for the most innovative film.

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