News

Caroline Link’s wonderful, woefully obscure Best Foreign Film winner is an entertaining story of the perils of wartime emigration. It hits hard right now, with our own immigration crackdown underway. A Jewish family smartly escapes Nazi Germany at the 11th hour, only to find themselves imprisoned in detention camps by the British — who ironically consider them dangerous enemy aliens. The show is a glorious growing-up tale for a German tot transplanted to Kenya, and becomes an edgy romantic story when the mother repurposes her amorous needs to help rescue her family.

Nowhere in Africa

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber / Zeitgeist

20019 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 141 min. / Nirgendwo in Afrika / Street Date February 27, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.95

Starring Merab Ninidze, Juliane Köhler, Lea Kurka, Karoline Eckertz, Sidede Onyulo, Matthias Habich, Herbert Knaup

Cinematography Gernot Roll

Production Designer Susann Bieling, Uwe Szielasko

Film Editor Patricia Rommel

Original Music Niki Reiser, Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock

Written by Caroline...

The 36th Ghent International Film Festival has named "Eyes Wide Open" by Israeli director Haim Tabakman as the Grand Prize for Best Film winner of the event, it was announced Wednesday.

"Eyes Wide Open" tells the story of a married Orthodox Jewish father who falls in love with a homeless Yeshiva student. When he hires him to work as his apprentice at his butcher shop, they form a close friendship which eventually develops into an emotional and sexual relationship. Being a devout religious man, he is torn between his family and devotion to God and his feelings for the student.

The film was chosen by the International Jury for this year, which includes Chairman Niki Reiser, Filip Peeters, Wang Quan'an, and Laszlo Nemes.

Other winners are: "Nathan Larson" for The Georges Delerue prize for Best Music; "Eran Merav (Zion and his Brother) for The Sabam prize for Best Script; and...

Cologne, Germany -- Studio Babelsberg producer Henning Molfenter, scheduled to attend the Zurich Film Festival as a member jury judging German-language films, is boycotting the festival to protest Saturday's arrest of director Roman Polanski.

Fellow jury members -- actor Til Schweiger and composer Niki Reiser -- are expected to follow suit.

"There is no way I'd go to Switzerland now. You can't watch films knowing Roman Polanski is sitting in a cell 5 km away," Molfenter told The Hollywood Reporter.

Zurich's international jury -- headed by actress Debra Winger -- will make a statement on Polanski's arrest at 12:30 p.m. local time.

Swiss police arrested the 76-year-old Polanski on Saturday night as he entered Switzerland to attend the Zurich festival. He is being held on a U.S. warrant connected to a decades-old charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

Studio Babelsberg is a co-producer on Polanski's latest,...

Berlin -- German, Turkish and Israeli cinema will have pride of place at the 36th Ghent International Film Festival (Oct. 6 -17), with films from the three countries accounting for half of the titles in competition.

Andreas Dresen's "Whiskey With Vodka" and Florian Gallenberger's German Film Prize winner "John Rabe", the Israeli films "Zion and his Brother" from Eran Merav and "Eyes Wide Open" by Haim Tabakman and both Miraz Bezar's "The Children Of Diyarbakir" and "There" from directors Hakki Kurtulus and Melik Saracoglu will compete for this year's Ghent Grand Prize.

Other titles in the competition lineup include "Applause" from Danish director Martin Pieter Zandvliet, and "Altiplano" from Belgians Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, Dutch director Ester Rots' drama "Can Go Through Skin," and Norwegian title "Troubled Water" by Erik Poppe.

Cyrus Nowrasteh's "The Stoning of Soraya M.," a drama set in 1980s Iran starring James Caviezel and Shohreh Aghdashloo,...

Berlin – "John Rabe," an historic biopic about the German business man who saved 200,000 Chinese civilians from the Nanking massacre, is the front runner for this year's German Film Awards – or Lolas – with seven nominations.

The film's nominations include best film, best director for Florian Gallenberger and a best actor for star Ulrich Tukur as Rabe.

Steve Buscemi also picked up a nomination as best supporting actor for his role as an idealistic American doctor who helps Rabe. It was one of the few Lola nominations ever given to a non-German actor.

Uli Edel's Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated terrorist drama "The Baader Meinhof Complex" picked up four Lola noms, including best film and best actress for Johanna Wokalek.

"Chiko," a gangster movie by first time director Ozgur Yildirim, surprised many by also nabbing a best film nom along with ones for Yildirim's screenplay, for lead actor Denis Moschitto and for editor Sebastian Thumler.

BERLIN -- Dani Levy's comedy Go for Zucker: An Unorthodox Comedy was the big winner at the 55th German Film Prizes, winning six of the coveted Lola stauettes, Germany's highest film honor, including best film, best director and best actor for Zucker star Henry Huebchen. Go for Zucker also grabbed the best screenplay prize for its script by Levy and Holger Franke; the best costume Lola went to Lucie Bates; and Niki Reiser took the best film music prize for his klezmer-inflected Zucker score. The story of two warring brothers -- one an orthodox West German Jew, the other an East German communist -- who have to settle their differences in order to collect their inheritance, Go for Zucker was originally planned as a low-budget TV movie.

BERLIN -- Dani Levy's comedy Go for Zucker: An Unorthodox Comedy was the big winner at the 55th German Film Prizes, winning six of the coveted Lola stauettes, Germany's highest film honor, including best film, best director and best actor for Zucker star Henry Huebchen. Go for Zucker also grabbed the best screenplay prize for its script by Levy and Holger Franke; the best costume Lola went to Lucie Bates; and Niki Reiser took the best film music prize for his klezmer-inflected Zucker score. The story of two warring brothers -- one an orthodox West German Jew, the other an East German communist -- who have to settle their differences in order to collect their inheritance, Go for Zucker was originally planned as a low-budget TV movie.

BERLIN -- Dani Levy's comedy Go for Zucker: An Unorthodox Comedy was the big winner at the 55th German Film Prizes, winning six of the coveted Lola stauettes, Germany's highest film honor, including best film, best director and best actor for Zucker star Henry Huebchen. Go for Zucker also grabbed the best screenplay prize for its script by Levy and Holger Franke; the best costume Lola went to Lucie Bates; and Niki Reiser took the best film music prize for his klezmer-inflected Zucker score. The story of two warring brothers -- one an orthodox West German Jew, the other an East German communist -- who have to settle their differences in order to collect their inheritance, Go for Zucker was originally planned as a low-budget TV movie.

BERLIN -- Dani Levy's comedy Go for Zucker: An Unorthodox Comedy was the big winner at the 55th German Film Prizes, winning six of the coveted Lola stauettes, Germany's highest film honor, including best film, best director and best actor for Zucker star Henry Huebchen. Go for Zucker also grabbed the best screenplay prize for its script by Levi and Holger Franke; the best costume Lola went to Lucie Bates; and Niki Reiser took the best film music prize for his klezmer-inflected Zucker score. The story of two warring brothers -- one an orthodox West German Jew, the other an East German communist -- who have to settle their differences in order to collect their inheritance, Go for Zucker was originally planned as a low-budget TV movie.

BERLIN -- Dani Levy's comedy Go for Zucker: An Unorthodox Comedy was the big winner at the 55th German Film Prizes, winning six of the coveted Lola stauettes, Germany's highest film honor, including best film, best director and best actor for Zucker star Henry Huebchen. Go for Zucker also grabbed the best screenplay prize for its script by Levi and Holger Franke; the best costume Lola went to Lucie Bates; and Niki Reiser took the best film music prize for his klezmer-inflected Zucker score. The story of two warring brothers -- one an orthodox West German Jew, the other an East German communist -- who have to settle their differences in order to collect their inheritance, Go for Zucker was originally planned as a low-budget TV movie.