Compelling history, new cinematic forms, and profound subject matter
Lübeck, Oct. 27, 2018. For more than 30 years now, the Film Forum has served as a platform for films from northern Germany at the Nordic Film Days Lübeck. At this year’s 60thanniversary edition of the festival (Oct. 30 – Nov. 4, 2018), a total of 46 narrative, documentary, short, and animated films will be presented.This year’s selection ranges from captivating films about historical figures, to unusual documentaries and narratives, to films that provide insight into refugees’ first experiences with our society.
“I am very pleased at the representation of young women filmmakers at the festival, such as Hille Norden, who was at the festival in 2014 as a Young Nordic Filmmaker, and is now showing her first feature-length documentary, or Esther Bialas, whose short films screened in the Film Forum while she was still a student at the Hamburg Media School, and who is now in the running for best first feature. Our closing film this year is “Heart of Holstein”, a stirring documentary about the eventful history of the Holstein Kiel sports club.Since the club was founded almost 120 years ago on the way to play against the Lübeck sports club, it’s a perfect way to complete the circuit”, says Doris Bandhold (Film Forum curator).
In the section’s narrative films, we can look forward to entries from renowned directors such as Miguel Alexandre (“Attempted Murder”), Sven Taddicken (“The Most Beautiful Couple”), and Christian Theede (“Sarah Kohr: A Girl Vanishes”), as well as directorial debuts.For the first time this year, the festival will award a prize for best first narrative feature, endowed with 7,500 euros by the Friends of the Nordic Film Days Lübeck.In the running for the new award are the mother-son drama “Goliath96”, directed by Marcus Richardt, with Katja Riemann in the lead, and produced by Lübeck native Rick Steyer, as well as the thriller “Hanna’s Homecoming” by Esther Bialas.
Several of the Film Forum films tackle, in a variety of ways, the stories of important people linked to the north, such as “Hans Blumenberg – The Invisible Philosopher”. Born and raised in Lübeck, Blumenberg is one of the Germany’s most influential post-war philosophers. For this cinematic portrait, director Christoph Rüter took to the road across Germany with two of the philosopher’s former students and Blumenberg researcher Dr Rüdiger Zill. In Lübeck, they meet other former students and examine the essential role Heinrich Dräger played in the survival of half-Jews during World War II, but also how he was betrayed in Lübeck and barely escaped the Nazis.The director will attend the screening on Oct. 31, 2018, along with Bettina Blumenberg, the philosopher’s daughter.
Other films about important figures are “It’s Time. The Painter Klaus Fussmann” and “Life is Also an Art – the Case of Max Emden”. “1918. The Sailors’ Revolt”takes us back 100 years to the events in Kiel that helped trigger the November Revolution. Director Jens Becker will be in Lübeck to introduce his film to audiences.
The section’s documentary films exhibit a series of innovative cinematic approaches.In “Another Day of Life”, the experiences of a photographer during the Angolan civil war are animated in the style of a graphic novel, while “Tracing Addai”, the story of a young man in the Syrian civil war, was made using a special animation technique called rotoscoping.Dario Aguirre also uses the technique in his film “Land of My Children”, in which he looks back at the process of getting a German passport – after 15 years residency – in Hamburg.The director’s film “Cesar’s Grill” was shown in the 2013 Film Forum.Hille Norden from Kiel also deals with the issue of “arrivals” in her first feature-length documentary “Khello Brothers”, about two Syrian brothers who begin a new life in Germany.Sandra Trostel also plays with animation elements in her film “All Creatures Welcome” about the Chaos Computer Club and its democratic vision for the digital age.
The CineStar Prize, first awarded in 2012, will be given to one of the 22 short films that are screening in different compilations in the Film Forum.For the 60thNordic Film Days Lübeck, the CineStar group, one of the festival’s main sponsors, has raised the award’s endowment to 5,000 euros.The three-person jury is made up of Karen Arikian(film expert and American delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival), Dirk Decker(producer), and Heike Schüttler(Friends of the NFL).
Once again, selected screening in the Film Forum section will be accessible.Among them are the Kiel version of “Crime Scene – Borowski and the Luck of Other People”, as well as double feature of “Crime Scene Cleaner – Rebels” and “Deadly Comeback” by Hermine Huntgeburth, which will be shown with audio description for the blind and subtitles for the deaf.
Many of the filmmakers will be guests at the festival and will be available for Q&A at the screenings.A complete list of the guests will be available on our Internet page beginning on Monday, October 29, 2018.
You can find the complete Film Forum programme here.
Press photos for the festival films are now available for download, alongside complete information about the festival at www.nordische-filmtage.de; follow us on Facebook, Twitterand Instagram.
The screening schedulefor the entire NFL, and additional details on the films are available now on the festival homepage.
Advance ticket sales begin on October 27 at 3:00 pm at the CineStar Filmpalast Stadthallecinema, online at the festival website, and at www.cinestar.de.
Press contact:
Press and Publicity Department
Nordic Film Days Lübeck
Schildstr.12, 23539 Lübeck
presse@nordische-filmtage.de
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