Lübeck, Oct. 10, 2014. The Film Forum programme of the 56th Nordic Film Days Lübeck (Oct. 29 – Nov. 2) will present a selection of the most interesting films produced last year in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. This year, the section is not dedicated to a single theme, but rather is more of a survey festival series, in which almost 40 percent of the films were directed by women. What distinguishes the films is a very authentic narrative style. They are everyday stories – tragic and comic, told with emotional depth and great sensitivity. Examples include several first outings, such as “3/4”, the narrative debut of Maike Mia Höhne and “Anywhere Else” (dir: Ester Amrami), as well as “Patong Girl”, a first narrative film from documentarian Susanna Salonen, who grew up in Lübeck. Also screening will be “Of Girls and Horses” shot be renowned director Monika Treut at the Rickelsbüller polder. You’ll see some familiar and beloved friends on the programme as well, such as Christian Theede (“Till Eulenspiegel”) and Lars Jessen, who will be in Lübeck to introduce his film “Stay Cool”. In “A Season in Hell”, director Christian Frosch takes us back to the 1960s, while Thomas Berger has once again filmed a Siegfried Lenz story with “The Loss”. Among the promising newcomers is Marc Brummund, whose “North by Northwest – Captain Hook”, with Hinnerk Schönemann and Henny Reents, was filmed partially on the Priwall Peninsula. Sören Hüper and Christian Prettin make their feature debut with the pitch black comedy “Toilets - A Colorful Potpourri of Human Perfidy”.
The documentaries in the Film Forum section also deal with their subjects in a very personal way, such as the theatre world in the case of “The Missing M” by Maria Hemmleb, or immigrants to the former East Germany in Marina Kem’s ”Bonne Nuit Papa”. Migration and the fate of refugees are a key theme for many of the documentarians in Lübeck, as seen in “I Have a Dream” by Fredo Wulf, “A Very German Welcome” by Carsten Rau and Hauke Wendler, Dorothea Carl’s ”persona non data“ and Helmut Schulzeck’s ”Sometimes I'm Thinking Now in German”. By contrast, Christoph Faulhaber explores the border between documentary and fiction in “Every Picture is an Empty Picture”. Other films give us portraits of artists, such as ”Peter Nagel” about the Kiel artist of the same name, directed by Christian Mertens and director Peter Sempel’s ”Roughcut Peter Brötzmann” about the ‘godfather of free jazz’.
Working with the non-profit Verein Andersicht e.V. and NDR television, the Film Forum will this year once again present two film programmes with audio descriptions for the blind or partially sighted. “Crime Scene Cleaner: Pigs” will screen before the preview of “Crime Scene: The Cowardice of the Lion”, followed by “Speed Dating for Seniors” with its absolutely stellar cast, introduced by director Jan Georg Schütte. For the accessible screenings, the festival Film Forum is working for the first time with Sennheiser Streaming Technologies GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the world’s leading manufacturer of audio systems, Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG. Sennheiser’s CinemaConnect brings audio descriptions and hearing support to cinemas, using live streaming on personal smartphones. This breakthrough technology means movie lovers with visual or hearing impairment will no longer have to forego a trip to the cinema. At the core of the solution developed by Sennheiser is a smartphone app that allows audience members to log on to a special WLAN in the theatre and access an auxiliary audio track for audio descriptions or hearing support. The additional tracks are streamed live in real time onto the user’s own smartphone, so he or she can listen over headphones. During the NFL, Sennheiser will make iPods and headphones available to users without smartphones. In addition, the remarkable documentary “Hearsay”, about how congenitally blind people “visualise” things, will be screened with a public audio description, so that the entire audience gets a concrete idea of how “audio films” work.
Rousing, interesting and entertaining short films will be shown in three sections. Two of those will screen student films; one of these is dedicated to mid-length films in particular to accommodate the trend towards longer short films.
Many prominent guests involved with the films have already accepted the invitation to attend the festival, including Victoria Trauttmansdorff (also a member of the NDR film prize jury), Hinnerk Schönemann, Henny Reents, Marleen Lohse, Devid Striesow, Angela Winkler, Helene Grass and Mario Adorf.
The complete programme of the 56th Nordic Film Days Lübeck will be online starting on October 18, 2014 and advance ticket sales begin on October 25 at 3:00 pm. Additional information is available at www.filmtage.luebeck.de, facebook.com/nordicfilmdays and twitter.com/nordicfilmdays.
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