Editor

„I might have been born in Liverpool, but I grew up in Hamburg.“
(John Lennon)
Filmfest Hamburg 2010 is honouring The Beatles with the section „Strawberry Fields“. Exactly 50 years ago the Fab Four had their first performance in St. Pauli. Then they got world famous. Another anniversary: John Lennon would have been 70 years old. Reason enough to show a film about his widely unknown early years.

Filmfest Hamburg will show on October 2nd the film „Nowhere Boy“ (director: Sam Taylor Wood) as German premiere in the CinemaxX Dammtor. We see John Lennon and his mother who taught him to play banjo and who introduced him to the exiting new world of Rock'n'Roll. When Lennon met Paul McCartney, they started their first band. The last pictures of the film show how Lennon and his friends put their guitars in the car to drive off to Hamburg. Even Yoko Ono was enthusiastic about “Nowhere Boy“ and the young main character, the British shooting star Aaron Johnson.

Filmfest Hamburg is honouring the legend also with a revival: on October 2nd during the day, two older movies about The Beatles will be shown in the cinema Passage: „Backbeat“ (1994) and „Hard Days, Hard Nights“ (1989).. As well, two documentary films will be shown: „Ringo und die Stadt am Ende des Regenbogens“ (1977) and „All You Need Is Klaus“ (2010). Even the Hamburg police has opened its archives and made some unpublished black and white material available about the arrival of the „British instrumental and singing quartet“ in the Hanseatic City in 1966. „The commandership of the uniformed police“ feared that some members of the audience would get in uncontrolled ecstasy because of this Bravo-Beatles-Blitz Tour in the Ernst-Merck-Halle.

But not only the music of The Beatles is ever-living, but as well the pictures of the band are an inherent part of pop history. The international known photographer Jürgen Vollmer is responsible for that. Already in the fifties, he was combing his hear in his front. That was at that time a rebellion. Vollmer was according to John Lennon the real inventor of their hair cut. 1st of October, Filmfest Hamburg will invite Vollmer for a discussion in the Deichtorhallen. There, he will present his new photo book “On Film Sets and Other Locations”.

The section “Strawberry Fields” is being presented by the strawberry farm Glantz.

The 18th Filmfest Hamburg will take place from September 30 to October 9, 2010 in the Abaton cinema, CinemaxX Dammtor, Cinema Passage, Cinema Metropolis, Cinema 3001 and in the B-movie.