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RELEASES Germany

Low-key but strong Christmas line-up

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The day before New Year’s Eve, animated film Yogi Bear and documentary Legends of Flight will be launched by Warner and Fantasia, respectively. Up against these big 3D productions, European cinema is celebrating Christmas on German screens without commercial showiness but with quality titles awaited with low-key but definite enthusiasm.

Splendid is hoping for success with Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s sordid version of a Christmas tale, Rare Exports [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jalmari Helander
film profile
]
, which has been snapped up by distributors across the world. Meanwhile, X Verleih is releasing Tom Tykwer’s new film, Three [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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(produced by X Filme Creative Pool), in which a couple of professionally-fulfilled 40-somethings (Sophie Rois and Sebastian Schipper) both fall in love with another man (Devid Striesow).

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Also on screens since December 23 are Yann Samuell’s French dramatic comedy With Love...From the Age of Reason [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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, starring Sophie Marceau (distributed by Schwarz-Weiss); Jens Neubert’s Swiss musical film Hunter's Bride (distribution: Constantin); and Patricio Guzmán’s French/German/Chilean astronomy-themed documentary Nostalgia for the Light (distribution: RealFiction).

The year’s last line-up, on December 30, consists of only four films, including three European (co-)productions: Stephen Frears’s pure Brit comedy Tamara Drewe [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile
]
(Prokino); Massy Tadjedin’s French/US title Last Night, starring Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet; and Frederick Wiseman’s French/US documentary La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Kool).

2011 will start with renewed energy. Constantin will launch the comedy Die Superbullen [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by DoP-turned-director Gernot Roll (who helmed hit comedy Männersache [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
); Filmgalerie 451 will distribute Tatjana Turanskyj’s drama The Drifter, presented at the 2010 Berlinale; and Filmaufbau is set to release the documentary Life’s Not A Home Game.

European cinema will also be represented by two French titles: Pascal Chaumeil’s Heartbreaker [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
, starring Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis (distribution: Universum); and Jean Becker’s My Afternoons With Marguerite [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, featuring Gérard Depardieu (distribution: Concorde).

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(Translated from French)

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