German film festival at NCA from Sep 29

LAHORE: The Annemarie-Schimmel Haus Lahore (German Cultural Centre) will organise a four-day German Film Festival in collaboration with Achtung Berlin-New Berlin Film Award and the National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore from September 29 to October 2.

The movies will be screened in NCA’s auditorium. Since the entry to the film festival will be free for everyone, there will be no tickets.

Nadia Riaz, the Annemarie-Schimmel Haus director, told The Express Tribune that the festival would showcase six different features films and documentaries of different genres. She said that Feo Aladag, director of the opening film, When We Leave, would especially fly to Lahore from Germany for the inauguration of the film festival. For the general understanding of all the foreign language films, they will have English subtitles, she added.

The six films to be exhibited include, When We leave, Valerie, I’ve never been happier, Evet I do, Resist-Intern Rebellion, and Comrade Couture.

When we leave:

A drama film by Feo Aladag will be screened on the first day at 5pm. It is story of a German-born girl Umay, who flees her oppressive marriage in Istanbul, taking her young son Cem with her. She is hoping to find a better life with her family in Berlin, but her unexpected arrival creates intense conflict. Her family is trapped in their conventions, torn between their love for her and the values of their community. Ultimately they decide to return Cem to his father in Turkey. To keep her son, Umay is forced to move again. She finds the inner strength to build a new life for Cem and herself, but her need for her family’s love drives her to a series of ill-fated attempts at reconciliation. What Umay doesn’t realise is just how deep the wounds are and how dangerous her struggle for self-determination has become. The screening of the movie will be followed by a discussion with Feo Aladag.

Valerie:

A drama film by director Birgit Möller, will be screened on September 30 at 5pm. The story of the film revolves around the once successful model Valerie who ends up in Berlin right before Christmas. She still has a room in the exclusive Hotel Hyatt, but actually the 29-year-old girl is completely broke and without any prospects. She, however, hides the seriousness of her situation from her friends and colleagues. From that point on, she spends the nights in her car and lives like a stowaway in the world of the rich and beautiful. Meanwhile, her tentative efforts to explain the situation to her friends fail. Only Andre, the parking attendant, becomes a witness to her double life. In the uneventful world of his workplace the homeless beauty is a sensation.

I’ve never been happier:

A drama film by Alexander Adolph will be screened on September 30 at 7pm. The film is the story of a wanted impostor, Frank, who after flirting in a boutique is arrested and sent to jail. When he is released from prison, he tries to earn his living in an honest way. One day, he meets the woman from the boutique again and is ready to do anything for her, even knowing that she works as a prostitute. But soon Frank cannot help but fall back into his old ways and increasingly loses his sense of reality.

Evet, I do:

A comedy film, by Sinan Akkus will be screened on October 1 at 5pm. In four creatively connected storylines, four couples find their love lives in conflict. A German man wants to marry his Turkish girlfriend, but must first convert to Islam and be circumcised. A Kurdish radio DJ and his Turkish on-air partner find their respective orthodox and secular families at war with each other. A gay Turkish car mechanic has a German boyfriend, but his parents have set up an arranged marriage. And finally, a poor Turkish immigrant needs to secure a green card marriage, but the prospective bride is hardly the one of his dreams.

Resist-Intern Rebellion:

A comedy film by Jonas Grosch, will be screened on October 1 at 7pm. The capitalistic yuppie Till and the leftist activist, half-French Sydelia are both fighting for their beliefs. While Till has just become the boss of his own intern consulting company and is filling a lucrative market niche, Sydelia decides to free him from the capitalist world through revolutionary means. The battle between true ideals and absolute love is on. The tip of the iceberg is to be a country-wide general intern strike, one that will cripple the country. Resist-Intern Rebellion is an entertaining, headstrong, revolutionary, unpolitical romantic comedy.

Comrade Couture:

A documentary by Marco Wilms will be screened on October 2 at 5pm. It is a journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin’s fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. In the midst of their constrained life existed a fantasy world where it was possible to be individual and follow the beat of your own drum. The film observes the desires,  passions and dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2010.