Online Film Screening
Christoph Hochhäusler: The Lies of the Victors
Goethe-Kino (Online - Only Available in the UK)
We start the Goethe-Kino year with two films by Christoph Hochhäusler. In the cinema, we will be showing his latest film Till the End of the Night, which premiered in competition at the 2023 Berlinale. On our Goethe on Demand streaming platform, his penultimate film The Lies of the Victors (2014) will be available to watch for a week.
With both films, Hochhäusler experiments with types of genre cinema and the breaking down of clear genre definitions. Till the End of the Night is an undercover cop story in which you never know who you can trust. The Lies of the Victors is set in the milieu of investigative journalism, where ambitious reporters work on a story trying to defy the forces of politics, industry and the military. For both films, Hochhäusler worked with the well-known cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider, who has also been responsible for the camera in several films by Angela Schanelec and Maria Späth, among others. The combined presentation of Christoph Hochhäusler's last two films, makes it possible to explore Hochhäusler’s handling of genre tropes and his visual style, which Vorschneider has helped to realise.
Fabian Groys, the protagonist of The Lies of the Victors, works in the capital's editorial office of a renowned political news magazine. Like a classic film noir hero, he works doggedly and preferably alone. He distracts himself from his stressful job by gambling at night and enjoyes his Porsche, which he sometimes has to use as collateral for his debts. He is currently pursuing a story about the suppression of information about soldiers who were permanently injured in Afghanistan. But his informant is stalling him, the story is shaky, which makes him react particularly negatively to his boss's instructions to work with the new volunteer Nadja. To get rid of her as quickly as possible, Fabian sends her off to investigate a strange provincial story. Nadja is not deterred, does thorough research and finds out that there is more to the case than expected. There even seems to be a connection to Fabian's Bundeswehr story. But proving this turns out to be difficult.
Early on in the movie, we realize that Fabian and Nadja are being watched. This suggests that there is something to their stories, that there are forces that want to control their movements, that they may be in danger, that they may be being manipulated. Hochhäusler and his cameraman Reinhold Vorschneider use reflections and refractions, as well as repetitive scanning camera movements, to transfer the uncertainty of the truth-seekers to us and to transport us into a world where it is not the upright reporters who write the stories, but high-level power networks.
Germany 2014 color, 110 min. with English subtitles.
Directed by Christoph Hochhäusler. With Florian David Fitz, Lilith Stangenberg, Horst Kotterba, Ursina Lardi.
The director and author Christoph Hochhäusler was born in Munich in 1972. He studied architecture in Berlin from 1993 to 1995 and film directing at the HFF in Munich from 1996 to 2004, initially working in various roles in film, such as storyboard artist, sound editor and assistant director. This Very Moment (Milchwald, 2003), his graduation film at the HFF, was followed by his second feature-length film I Am Guilty (Falscher Bekenner) in 2005. After contributing to the omnibus film Deutschland 09, he made his third feature-length film The City Below (Unter dir die Stadt), which premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and received the German Film Prize for the screenplay. At the Berlinale 2011, the joint TV project Dreileben by Dominik Graf, Christian Petzold and Christoph Hochhäusler, consisting of three individual 90-minute films, was presented, to which Hochhäusler contributed the film Eine Minute Dunkel. In 2012, the three directors were honoured with the Grimme Award "Special". Hochhäusler's next feature film The Lies of the Victors (Die Lügen der Sieger) premiered at the 2014 Rome Film Festival. From January 2017 to December 2021, Hochhäusler was a senior lecturer in the directing department at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). His last film to date, Till the End of the Night, premiered in competition at the 2023 Berlinale and won a Silver Bear for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for Thea Ehre. Hochhäusler has published numerous film journalistic works, including as founder and co-editor of the film magazine Revolver. (Source: filmportal.de, slightly edited)
Details
Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
London
SW7 2PH
@@country@@
Price: Price: Free, but registration is required via Eventbrite
+44 20 75964000 info-london@goethe.de