German Currents Film Festival in Los Angeles October 11–14, 2019
The annual German Currents Film Festival is a fixture on the cultural calendar in Los Angeles. Screening groundbreaking new movies from Germany, ranging from art-house films to blockbusters, and from children’s matinees to late-night movies, German Currents attracts a diverse group of Angelenos of all ages.
The opening night red carpet gala will take place on Friday, Oct 11th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, followed by festival screenings from Oct 12th through Oct 14th.
This year’s festival will open with the award-winning film, Gundermann, by acclaimed director Andreas Dresen, who will also be present at the opening night. Focusing on the extraordinary and contradictory life of East German singer/songwriter Gerhard Gundermann, Dresen’s film was an audience favorite and box office success in Germany. The film received six German Film Awards (Lola) including Best Film: Gold, Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Leading Actor (Alexander Scheer), Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and Gundermann is a wonderful film engaging with the subject.
I personally became a fan of Andreas Dresen in 2005 with his two films, Cloud 9 and Summer in Berlin, two very different films, though both are about women. In Cloud 9 an older woman enters into an affair after 30 years of marriage and in Summer in Berlin, a jobless single mom and a nurse living in the same apartment building house are best friends. Although always dating the wrong men in their pursuit of happiness, they keep their sense of humor and spend many nights together on one’s balcony, drinking and chatting during a summer in Berlin. Both these films touched points of veracity within me.
The full schedule will be announced soon on the websites of the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and American Cinematheque.
The German Currents Film Festival 2019 is a co-production of the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and the American Cinematheque, and is presented in cooperation with the German Consulate General, and with the support of German Films, Deutsche Welle (DW), Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and The Friends of Goethe as part of the Year of German-American Friendship 2018/19 — a comprehensive and collaborative initiative of the Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut, and with the support of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
