Kino@Goethe is celebrating 70 years of German Films, Germany's film marketing agency and a strong partner of the Goethe-Institut worldwide, with this program out of a selection of the best and most successful German films over the past seven decades by German film expert Alfred Holighaus.
More highlights will be shown at the Open Air Cinema:
4:00 PM Solo Sunny
GDR, end of the seventies: Ingrid Sommer, a girl from the factory, tries to make a career as the singer "Sunny". With the band "Tornados", the young woman tours the province and its cultural venues. Her life is not sunny, even if her love for philosopher Ralph promises light and warmth at times. A story between dreariness and hope - and in retrospect a wonderfully accurate and authentic film about life in the GDR.
Directed by Konrad Wolf
East Germany, 1980
Blu-ray, 104 min.
6:00 PM Good Bye Lenin
Berlin (East) in autumn 1989: Alex Kerner's mother is in a coma after a heart attack and misses the fall of the Berlin Wall. She awakes in summer 1990. Her doctor declares that excitement of any kind could be fatal. Alex must conceal the fall of the SED regime from her. He and his friends pretend to the sick woman that the GDR still exists; the illusion remains perfect until one day the truth can no longer be concealed. The clever comedy was the most successful film of the year in 2003.
Directed by Wolfgang Becker
Germany, 2003
DVD, 121 min.
Trace of Stones depicts an example of everyday life in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) in the mid-1960s with multifaceted storylines and a provocative film history that is still intriguing today. Set on a construction site and through the lens of a love triangle, the film thematizes the plight of the workers living under the thumb of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED). Banned shortly after its premiere, Trace of Stones is now widely considered one of the most important films made in East Germany because of its candid portrayal of working conditions, humorous discussions of state shortcomings, and the film’s frank acknowledgment of the struggle between individual desires and the success of the collective.
Directed by Frank Beyer
East Germany, 1966
DVD, 139 min.
