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RELEASES Germany

German films kick off the new school year

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- Only one American blockbuster was released in German cinemas this week, compared to eight European titles, of which six are German.

German cinemas this week are showing many German (and European) alternatives to the latest instalment of the Bourne saga (the only American offering out this week, distributed by Universal). Studiocanal yesterday notably released Ingo Rasper's local comedy Vatertage: Opa über Nacht [+see also:
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, in which a Munich rickshaw driver living the bohemian life suddenly discovers his 17 year-old daughter, who he didn't know existed, and her baby on his doorstep, and unexpectedly becomes father and grandfather in one go. This Claussen + Wöbke + Putz production stars Sebastian Bezzel (Stellungswechsel [+see also:
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), Sarah Horvath, and Monika Gruber.

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Wild Bunch is hedging its bets on Toke Constantin Hebbeln's Wir wollten aufs Meer [+see also:
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, a Frisbeefilms and UFA Cinema production in which August Diehl and Alexander Fehling play two East German dockers who dream of leaving the GDR.

Didi Danquart's Bittere Kirschen [+see also:
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tells the story of Lena (Anna Stieblich, who recently appeared in the popular film Turkish for Beginners [+see also:
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), an actress who, after her mother's death, resigns and decides not only to return to her home town, but also to delve back into her mother's past, in the company of one of her mother's childhood friends, by travelling to Auschwitz, Poland, "where everything started," as her mother always used to say. Just as they leave, they are joined by a priest tormented by his feelings for the young lady. This noirfilm production is distributed by Filmlichter.

Three German documentaries are also out in cinemas: Berg Fidel, a Berlin Film Academy (dffb) production in which Hella Wenders follows the pedagogical experiment of participatory learning in a school (distr. W-Film), Jan Haft's Das grüne Wunder - Unser Wald, a spectacular documentary about nature co-produced by nautilusfilm and Doclights that uses new technologies to highlight its most marvellous aspects (distr. polyband), and Revision in which Philip Scheffner investigates the 1992 murder of two Romanian asylum seekers on the German-Polish border (RealFiction).

Fox is offering the German public a Spanish-Colombian thriller, Andrés Baiz' La cara oculta [+see also:
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, in which a Spanish orchestra conductor visits Bogota with his girlfriend Belén. When the latter mysteriously disappears, he immediately replaces her with another woman, only to continue hearing strange noises at night, as if Belén were not far away.

The last European novelty this week is a co-production between four countries of ex-Yugoslavia that won the Audience Award in the Panorama section at the last Berlinale. In Srdjan Dragojevic's comedy The Parade [+see also:
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, distributed by Neue Visionen, the organisers of a Gay Pride in Belgrade battle against a rather homophobic local culture.

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(Translated from French)

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