Titel.KINO 1/04.RV - german films

Scene from ”Good Bye, Lenin!“
French cinemas: a further symptom of the distribution problems in
both countries, especially with respect to smaller, independent
films. This is absolutely clear to Unifrance director Margaret
Menegoz: ”If we do not solve this problem,“ she said to the
German film magazine Blickpunkt: Film, ”all our efforts will have
been in vain.“
MEETING HALF WAY
It is clear, therefore, that the French and Germans have begun talking
to each other more openly. The first Rendez-vous in Lyon, wellattended
with 150 producers, distributors, directors, film functionaries
and politicians from both countries, was a forum for such discussion,
although it may not have led to concrete results. But isn’t
the existence of the forum itself, which is to take place annually
from now on, a hopeful enough first result? There were debates on
production, financing and distribution – and about film political
strategies. These sharpened the beginnings of a joint understanding
of the value of the two film languages – also in opposition to
Hollywood. There were plans to, if not harmonize, at least make
more transparent the different systems of film promotion, and even
to act in concert at future film political decisions in Brussels, as the
”motor of Europe“ (to quote French Minister of Cultural Affairs
Jean-Jacques Aillagon). Big words. But perspectives, at least. Aside
from this, there were interested approaches between the centralist
state’s treasurer of the cultural asset film, on the one hand, and the
less comfortably equipped ”funding acrobats“ – as Bavaria director
Thilo Kleine ironically described the federal German self-image – on
the other. Motto: we are not so foreign to each other, after all.
It is possible to lament that Germany and France need such events
in order to bolster their courage: but what if – as seems to be the
case – joint film projects develop again from them? And if they lead
to a new, sharper focus on what is going on culturally and financially
in film circles across the border; a border that will soon be no more
than one of language? The network of great European directors
who fascinated European film fans during the sixties and seventies,
and at the same time – via cinema – sharpened our primarily cultural
identity as Europeans, will certainly not return at once because
of these efforts. It is a matter of new, individual signatures –
and an ever-increasing number of these. There are already isolated
examples: the films of Pedro Almodóvar and François Ozon awaken
interest in an entire œuvre, something that was natural in the
past. In addition, there are sudden, peaceful attackers such as
Roberto Benigni, for whom borders mean nothing – and recently
Wolfgang Becker has joined this category too.
LOOKING AHEAD
This year’s Berlinale will introduce another step in German-French
cooperation: the French broadcaster TV5 and the German-French
Youth Organization are joining forces to present a new prize, the
Dialogue en Perspective, to one of the German films screening in the
Perspectives German Cinema sidebar. The jury will comprise three
young German and four young French cineastes, giving them the
opportunity to develop a dialogue through the exchange of views
about the art of cinema.
Six and a half million viewers in Germany, around one and a half in
France, a huge success in England and worldwide sales in around 70
countries: as a tremendous individual event, Good Bye, Lenin!
may not immediately save German film on the international stage,
but it has set something in motion. ”The international distributors
are now paying more attention to the German market,“ says Jean
Hernandez, the lucky Lenin! of Océan Films. ”We have all become
more watchful.“ After all, nobody likes to let the best bargain in the
world to slip through his fingers.
Jan Schulz-Ojala, film editor for Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel
kino 1 focus on german-french film relations
2004 11