Editor

In its third year the focus of Perspektive Deutsches Kino on young, innovative cinema “Made in Germany” has become even broader. “This series also allows us to show films which – due to their unusual formats – would not fit into other festivals’ programmes. This year we made four finds of this kind in film schools: Charlotte, Blind, Leise Krieger (Silent Warriors) and Transport”, head of the Perspektive Alfred Holighaus remarked on the selection for the series.

In Germany today not only cinema itself is on the move, but also its protagonists. For the opening of Perspektive Deutsches Kino, they will, for instance, travel back and forth between Cologne and Berlin by hitching rides and chipping in for gas: Mitfahrer (Traffic Affairs) tells the story about different people whose brief trip completely changes their lives – “Short Cuts” on the autobahn.

In Jan Krüger’s first full-length feature Unterwegs (En route) the leading characters take to the road as well: a young couple misses out on an idyllic holiday when an uninvited but fascinating travelling companion puts their relationship to the test. During a night on the town in Frankfurt the key figure in Patrick Tauss’ tragicomedy Der Typ (The Man) gets an intense impression of the highs and lows of real life in Germany.

Charlotte is on the road, too – a homeless academic mingling with Berlin’s in-crowd: Ulrike von Ribbeck’s film is an eye-opening journey through the eagerly ignored dark sides of the city.

In Nicolai Rohde’s psychodrama Zwischen Nacht und Tag (Between Night and Day) a subway driver from Essen walks the line between hallucination and reality, wrestling with the trauma he sustained when a young woman threw herself in front of his train.

In his directing debut Muxmäuschenstill actor Marcus Mittermeier lets his protagonist Mux embark on a self-appointed mission to set the world to rights. Mux seeks out the painful realities – painful for others and ultimately for himself. He becomes a warrior of justice and a bounty hunter who also crosses the borders of lawfulness.

In Branwen Okpako’s political thriller Tal der Ahnungslosen (Valley of the Innocent) Afro-German police officer Eva Meyer’s investigation into a murder in Dresden turns into a trip back to the time before the Wall came down.

Clearly defined locations and artificial worlds play a conspicuous role in the programme’s short films. While a high-rise development in Jena-Lobeda turns into a microcosm full of displaced emotions in Saskia Jell’s film Blind, the protagonist of Alexander Dierbach’s psychological drama Leise Krieger (Silent Warriors) quite literally builds a cosmos of terrifying childhood memories for himself. The sci-fi atmosphere in Silvio Helbig’s Transport is another construct, a “brave new world” providing the stage for an indifferent system with no regard for individuals.

The programme is rounded off by two very special documentaries: Flammend’ Herz (Blue Skin) by Andrea Schuler and Oliver Ruts portrays three very old men. All three have lived fulfilled lives beyond the limits of middle-class norms, yet stayed in touch with society. Three living legends, survivors of a world still seen as alien by many, a world with a lifestyle expressed through tattoos. Holger Jancke’s Grenze (Borderline) tells of the recent past. It is the story of five young men posted to Halberstadt in the mid-eighties to defend the western border of the socialist bloc. Their vivid recollections of the death strip seem both absurd and spine-chilling.