Valeska Grisebach was born in Bremen and studied Direction in Vienna, at its Film Academy in 1993. Her graduation film and first full-length feature was Mein Stern (You’re a Star 2001). This concern with the ordinary carries through to her latest project Sehnsucht (2006), which distinguished itself at the Berlinale for that year, and received a nomination for the Golden Bear award.
Mein Stern demonstrates a sensitive documentary realism in its portrayal of a relationship between two fifteen year olds, but not to examine social themes of adolescence; rather to draw out emotional realities. Sehnsucht remains in similar territory. Grisebach shows an interest in the different roles we assume at different points in our lives, but how those experiences are demonstrated in the everyday exchanges and minutiae. Interviewed about Mein Stern, she said: “The normal, the quotidian interests me. I didn't want to make a film with any generic statements about youth in the year 2000 but rather to capture a timeless and perhaps even old-fashioned moment.”(www.sensesofcinema.com)
Having trained in Vienna, Grisebach has been making her way back to Berlin where she grew up. She acknowledges being influenced by the films being made by other Berlin-based filmmakers, and describes the idea of a ‘Berliner Schule’ as a “friendly, pragmatic union. Perhaps the connection, as far as the content of our films is concerned, is the attempt to find an approach to reality, and thus to our own identities.” (www.german-films.de).
Showing posts with label German/Austrian Cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label German/Austrian Cinema. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2008
Director Pen Portraits: Hans-Christian Schmid
Hans-Christian Schmid has made his mark as a producer, director and writer. In addition, one of the most intriguing parts of his identity (and something that marks him as part of the new set of young German directors) is that range of genres and dramatic material he has worked in.
Qualified from Munich’s Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film, he studied scriptwriting at the University of Southern California, L.A. His first films included awarding-winning documentaries, Sekt Oder Selters (1981), about gambling machine addicts and Die Mechanik Des Wunders (1992) exploring the drama and personal tensions around a pilgrimage in his native Altötting.
His career has been built on long-standing associations with producers Jakob Claussen and Thomas Wöbke, and writer/director Michael Gutmann, all being involved in his debut feature Nach Fünf Im Urwald (It’s a Jungle Out There 1995), which also launched Franka Potente. Other acting discoveries include August Diehl (23 and Lichter), who went on to play the morally superior Adolf Burger in Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters 2007).
In 2004, Schmid founded his own production company 23/5, which produced his own film, Requiem and Robert Thalheim’s 'Am Ende Kommen Touristen, (And Along Came Tourists), a contemporary examination of Auschwitz, the relationship of the town to its visitors. The vibrancy of the current German film industry can, I think, be explained in part by this entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by its directors.
Requiem (2006), which followed the Hollywood version The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a far more controlled and powerful study of the death of an epileptic girl after a series of church-sanctioned exorcisms. Sandra Hueller’s intense central performance won her a Silver Bear at 2006 Berlinale, and the film allows the complexity of the character and the family relationships that conspired with simple religious belief. It, like the documentaries mentioned above, has strong roots in his biography and his early experiences of growing up in Bavaria.
He has been classified as part of a new German school of directors but in a recent interview classifies himself as working on the margins and “watching what they’re doing, although I’m pleased it exists.”
Qualified from Munich’s Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film, he studied scriptwriting at the University of Southern California, L.A. His first films included awarding-winning documentaries, Sekt Oder Selters (1981), about gambling machine addicts and Die Mechanik Des Wunders (1992) exploring the drama and personal tensions around a pilgrimage in his native Altötting.
His career has been built on long-standing associations with producers Jakob Claussen and Thomas Wöbke, and writer/director Michael Gutmann, all being involved in his debut feature Nach Fünf Im Urwald (It’s a Jungle Out There 1995), which also launched Franka Potente. Other acting discoveries include August Diehl (23 and Lichter), who went on to play the morally superior Adolf Burger in Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters 2007).
In 2004, Schmid founded his own production company 23/5, which produced his own film, Requiem and Robert Thalheim’s 'Am Ende Kommen Touristen, (And Along Came Tourists), a contemporary examination of Auschwitz, the relationship of the town to its visitors. The vibrancy of the current German film industry can, I think, be explained in part by this entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by its directors.
Requiem (2006), which followed the Hollywood version The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a far more controlled and powerful study of the death of an epileptic girl after a series of church-sanctioned exorcisms. Sandra Hueller’s intense central performance won her a Silver Bear at 2006 Berlinale, and the film allows the complexity of the character and the family relationships that conspired with simple religious belief. It, like the documentaries mentioned above, has strong roots in his biography and his early experiences of growing up in Bavaria.
He has been classified as part of a new German school of directors but in a recent interview classifies himself as working on the margins and “watching what they’re doing, although I’m pleased it exists.”
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