The 20th Edition of Berlin & Beyond: New Films from Germany, Austria, & Switzerland plays Jan. 14-17 at the Castro Theatre, Jan. 18-20 at San Francisco's Goethe Institut, and Jan. 31 at Stockton's Janet Leigh Theatre at the University of the Pacific.
Tom Schilling (born Berlin, 1982) has in recent years joined the ranks of German film actors with an international following. This year the still radiantly boyish Schilling will stand on the Castro Theatre stage to accept the festival's 2nd annual Spotlight Award in Acting. Two of his films appear at the festival: the cyber-thriller Who Am I - No System is Safe and the international hit A Coffee in Berlin (Oh Boy).
Who Am I - No System is Safe, the Castro opening-night film directed by Baran bo Odar, brings us computer geek Ben (Schilling), whose wish to belong to a rebel group of computer hackers turns into a nightmare when he's invited to join CLAY (Clowns Laughing at You) by the slippery underground star hacker Max (Elyas M'Barek). Initially overjoyed at belonging to a hip in-group, Ben discovers the perils of a high-risk game where he fears both the cyber cops and his not-so-trustworthy new "friends." (Castro, 1/14, 8 p.m.)
Schilling recently chatted with me by Skype. Our conversation covered his career, begun innocently at age six at the insistence of his grandma, and now gathering warp speed with a series of European hit films including Who Am I and the droll social satire A Coffee in Berlin, winner of six German film awards. Standing 5'7" in his stocking feet, Schilling has gained a reputation for playing innocent-appearing, boyish protagonists to whom filmgoers can attach their fantasies. I told Schilling how much I was taken with his role as the doomed schoolboy idealist in Dennis Gensel's Before the Fall, a poetically conceived tragedy set in the dead of winter in a castle turned into a Nazi training academy. From my 2006 review: "A beautiful boy (Schilling in just a pair of undershorts), his lips bloated to bluish red by freezing water, his eyes bidding an urgent farewell, turns into a ghost before our eyes in one of the most startlingly erotic moments in any film seen this year, the climax of a new German history film with disturbing parallels to our own messy times."
Schilling described the effect of his character's dramatic plunge to death in a freezing lake as "cheesy," while detailing how the effect, powerful onscreen, was created. He agreed to appear in Who Am I after finishing the more broadly pitched satire A Coffee in Berlin because he wanted a complete change of pace for his next work. While many critics were taken by Coffee 's B&W cinematography, Schilling feels it was just an appropriate artistic choice. But the B&W retro look did not influence how he played his frustrated, caffeine-starved dolt, who spends the film getting a series of comeuppances, including the loss of his bank card and humiliating lectures from an ex and his dad.
Jan. 15: The festival features films focusing on the dilemmas of German-speaking youth. We Are Young. We Are Strong. Director Burhan Qurbani embeds us with three characters and their conflicting views of violent anti-immigrant riots that break out in a small town in the newly reunified Germany. The rioters, mostly underemployed white men, have focused their anger on a newly arrived group of immigrants from Vietnam. By film's end the Molotov cocktail-hurling rioters will torch a public housing project, spreading panic among its Vietnamese-speaking residents and stirring conflicting emotions among Rostock's leaders.
It's 1992, a few years past the fall of the Berlin Wall, and some residents of Rostock, once part of the now-defunct East German Democratic Republic (GDR), are looking for scapegoats as an outlet for their anger. For gay male viewers, several of the male rioters are hyperattractive, including two boys grieving the recent suicide of a friend who leapt from a ninth-story apartment, leaving a note overflowing with despair, not seeing a future for himself in his impoverished community.
We Are Young deftly combines multiple themes that have plagued an otherwise prosperous post-WWII Europe. There's the racist component of the young men's hatred of the mostly Vietnamese newcomers. A somewhat sublimated theme is in the film's almost lyrical homoerotic portrayals of the youths. With two German film awards for actors Joel Basman & David Stiesow, the film may prove the launching pad for significant acting careers. It's a disturbing look at immigrant-bashing that's all-too-close to the turmoil currently roiling the Eurozone countries. (Castro, 1/15, 6 p.m.)
The Spiderwebhouse Director Mara Eibl-Eibesfeldt explores childhood fears and fantasies. A 12-year-old protagonist has to fend for himself and two younger siblings when their mother suddenly abandons the children. The director will introduce the film and take questions at its 1/15, 10 a.m. Castro screening.
Head Full of Honey Actor-director Til Schweiger takes a delicate approach to dramatizing a young girl's appreciation that her beloved grandfather has early stage Alzheimer's. Having just lost his wife, the older man faces being placed in a nursing home by Tilda's parents, who fear they can no longer deal with his increasingly erratic behavior. The film, 2014's German box-office champ, runs 139 minutes, in German with English subtitles. (Castro, 1/15, Noon)
Chucks Austrian co-directors Sabine Hiebler and Gerhard Ertl serve up the adventures of Mae (Anna Posch), a young Viennese woman acting out a punk fantasy aided by the possession of her dead brother's Converse sneakers. Attempting to break into her city's poetry-slam circuit, Mae survives on a beer diet. Eventually her hijinks bring her a sentence to work at an AIDS center, where she falls for a young man. Based on a novel by Cornelia Travnicek, this edgy youth-themed film garnered the 2015 Audience Award at the Montreal World Film Festival. (Castro, 1/15, 3:45 p.m.)
Toro Director Martin Hawie offers an unusual buddy adventure. The Polish-born German Toro (Paul Wollin) dreams of establishing a boxing gym with his Latin friend Victor (Miguel Dagger). Toro pursues his end of the dream by sleeping with women for money; Victor plies his trade as a hustler whose clients are mostly older men. While the dream of the boxing gym slowly slips away, Victor has to contend with the very real nightmare of drug dealers demanding money. Preceded by the short Fidelity, Liker Catak's account of a young Turkish woman, Asli, whose shelter of a political activist attracts the attention of Turkish police. (Castro, 1/15, 9 p.m.)
Jan. 16: The Pasta Detectives Neele Leana Vollmar's award-winning children's feature involves a pair of boys on the track of a kidnapper. Based on Andreas Steinhofel's bestselling children's book. (Castro, 1/16, 11 a.m.)
Tour de Force Christian Zubert directs this moving account of adult bicyclists who discover that one of their members is facing an incurable disease. (Castro, 1/16, 1 p.m.; Stockton, 1/31, 3 p.m.)
After Spring Comes Fall Director Daniel Carsenty digs into the complicated loyalties of a young Kurdish woman who becomes a political informant at the behest of the Syrian government. A fictional x-ray into the often-impossible dilemmas faced by refugees from the Middle East. With director Carsenty in person. (Castro, 1/16, 3 p.m. forum; 4 p.m. film)
Family Party Director Lars Kraume creates an arresting family reunion drama that kicks off with the 70th birthday party of the family patriarch. International premiere. (Castro, 1/16, 7 p.m.)
A Coffee in Berlin (Oh Boy) Spotlight actor recipient will be onstage to introduce and do a post-film Q&A. Anyone wishing the full Schilling experience should consult his other major roles on video, including Generation War, the epic TV series detailing Hitler's ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union; Agnes and His Brothers, about a transsexual struggling for her role in her madcap family, with Schilling as a young pot-planting sibling; and the classic military academy drama Before the Fall, where Schilling's young officer becomes a conscience-pricker for his aspiring boxer friend. (Castro, 1/16, 9:30 p.m.)
Jan. 17: Iraqi Odyssey in 3D Director Samir takes 163 minutes to describe how his once-prosperous Middle Eastern country has been plunged into war and ruin. Using archival footage depicting unveiled women and stylishly attired men, Samir provides a reality check that may run counter to myths often propagated in Western media. (Castro, 1/17, 1 p.m.)
Ms. Mueller Must Go Parents rise up against controversial grade school teacher. With actress Anke Engelke in person. (Castro, 1/17, 5 p.m.)
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City Silent director Walther Ruttmann delivers a 65-minute portrait of the German capital in 1927, at the crest of the Weimar years and before the ravages of the Nazis. This silent classic will be accompanied by Berlin rock band ALP. (Castro, 1/17, 8 p.m.)
Jan. 18-20: More than a half-dozen features will unspool in 2016 Berlin & Beyond 's second act at SF's Goethe Institut Auditorium (530 Bush St.). Above and Below Nicolas Steiner presents an idiosyncratic portrait of Americans living above and below the great Western desert. (1/18, 6 p.m. reception, 7 p.m. film, with director Steiner in person)
Tibetan Warrior Director Dodo Hunziker explores a disturbing trend in the Tibetan protest movement against Chinese occupation. Monks are resorting to self-immolation. An exiled monk seeks an audience with the Dalai Lama for spiritual advice. (1/19, 6 p.m.)
Gruber is Leaving Austrian director Marie Kreutzer gives us an egocentric fast-lane guy who gets devastating news from an unexpected quarter. Preceded by short Everything will be Okay. (1/19, 8 p.m.)
A German Youth Director Jean-Gabriel Periot has assembled a collage of Germany's fateful tussle with radical youth groups such as the Baader-Meinhof group. A faithful account of 60s German radicalism, previously covered mostly in the films of German queer wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder. (1/20, 6 p.m.)
Our Last Tango Wim Wenders presents director German Kral's bio-doc on a fabulous male/female tango team, Marie Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes, as they remember their careers at the end of their lives. Presented with doc short The Last Will, where a young man must meet his imprisoned father to satisfy the terms of his late mom's will. His dad is serving 25 years for murdering his own brother. (1/20, 8 p.m.)
Jan. 31, in Stockton at the Janet Leigh Theatre at the University of the Pacific: Shorts program (11 a.m.); The Messenger Su Rynard's doc on the meaning behind endangered songbirds (1 p.m.); Tour de Force (3 p.m.); Our Last Tango (6 p.m.); Who Am I - No System is Safe (8 p.m.).