Goethe-Kino (Cinema Screening)
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 Victdors 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, which Vorschneider has helped to realise.
Till the End of the Night begins with a transformation - an empty apartment becomes a home with an individual touch before our eyes. The stage is set for an under-cover operation in which police officer Robert and Leni, a trans woman released early from prison, play lovers in order to gain the trust of former DJ and online drug dealer Victor Arth. Leni has a special role to play here, as she worked as a sound engineer for Victor when she was still a man and was called Lenard. Their previous acquaintance forms the first connection, then Leni also becomes friends with Victor's girlfriend, and finally Robert is hired by Viktor for his illegal business. The "infiltration" seems to be going well, were it not for the tensions between Robert and Leni, who were once a gay couple, and the threat posed by a traditional dealer gang that feel threatened by Victor’s online business.
Oscillating between neo-noir and melodrama reminiscent of Fassbinder, the film, with the help of its outstanding actors Timocin Ziegler and Thea Here, develops a complex play of opposing forces - attraction and rejection, emotion and calculation, bourgeois habits and mortal danger. A soundtrack of Schlager from the 50s, 60s and 70s lifts the film out of time, conveying a clarity of feeling contrary to the emotional confusion of the protagonists that suddenly ends with the surprising final scene.
Germany 2023, color, 123min. with English subtitles.
Directed by Christoph Hochhäusler. With Timocin Ziegler, Thea Ehre, Michael Sideris, Ioana Iacob, Rosa Enskat, Aenne Schwarz, Gottfried Breitfuß, Sahin Eryilmaz, Ronald Kukulies.
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 90-minute individual films, was presented, to which Hochhäusler contributed the film Eine Minute Dunkel. In 2012, the three directors were honored 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)
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