07/12/2007

This week, German distributors are releasing four home-grown productions and four domestic co-productions, including the much-awaited second feature by brothers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, seven years after their controversial film Oi! Warning.

The directors’ latest film, Für den unbekannten Hund [+see also:
trailer
film profile], produced by Eye! Warning Filmproduktion and distributed by Senator, tells the story of a young worker who flees and goes on the run with travellers after committing a murder.

Prometheus is releasing another feature, The Visible and the Invisible by Rudolf Thome. Produced by Moana-Film, the film traces the end of a love affair between two artist-painters whose lives go their separate ways.

Documentary releases include Close up Kurdistan, Kurdish director Yüksel Yavuz’s study of his own experience of immigration and the history of Turkey (distributed by Mîtosfilm); and Der große Navigator, in which Wiltrud Baier and Sigrun Köhler look at the work of a Christian missionary who returns from Papua New Guinea to the former GDR (distributed by Gmfilms).

The first of the four co-productions released this week represented Germany at the festivals organised by German Films across Europe. It is of course Maria Speth’s Madonnas, for which actress Sandra Hüller won Best Actress award at Mar del Plata for her role as the mother of a large family of emotionally disturbed delinquents.

Produced by Pandora (in co-production with Switzerland and Belgium) and starring Olivier Gourmet and Susanne Lothar, the film is distributed by Peripher.

Alpha Medienkontor is releasing the UK/German/Belgian co-production The Commissioner, a thriller by Dutch director George Sluizer, starring John Hurt and Armin Mueller-Stahl, whose plot unfolds in Brussels, at the heart of the European political scene.

MFA is launching the Swedish/Danish animated co-production Pettson och Findus 3 – Tomtemaskinen, by Jorgen Lerdam and Anders Sørensen.

Salzgeber is releasing the Austrian/German documentary Prater [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ulrike Ottinger, which retraces memories of the fairgrounds at the Viennese amusement park of the same name.

And finally, the last European release of the week is the French film My Best Friend [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Patrice Leconte, starring Daniel Auteuil (distributed by Alamode).

(Translated from French)