Featured image- A scene from the award winning feature film 4 KINGS.
The 15th German Film Fest is being held on 15-29 November 2016 at Palace’s Chauvel and Norton Street cinemas in Sydney, as well as in Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.
The 36 films in this festival include features and documentaries, retro classics, kids films and were selected from 250 German language films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They include 25 Australian premieres, and films such as Dirty Games an investigative sports documentary; this year’s biggest box-office hit The Most Beautiful Day about two terminally ill patients who decide to go out with a bang on an African road trip; and James Franco starring in Wim Wenders’ 3D epic Everything Will Be Fine.
The Goethe-Institute Director, Sonja Griegoschewski declared that it is a “particularly inspiring year for women, both behind and in front of the camera with Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann (Winner of the FIPRESCI Grand Prix in Cannes), Doris Dorrie’s Fukushima, Mon Amour, Julia Jentsch in 24 Weeks, and many more.”
These others include 4 KINGS, the award winning feature debut from Theresa von Eltz, about four emotionally troubled teenagers from Hamburg who spend Christmas in a psychiatric unit.
Christmas is approaching, a time where there are societal messages of close happy families, of love, welcome gift giving and hope. It is also a time for reflection and contemplation. This film reveals lives in stark contrast to these messages and provides a contemplative air and time for viewer reflection.
The opening handheld camera shot shows Alex (Paula Beer) asking “Am I in focus?” It is a question which has universal application, not only in the environment in which she finds herself. Fleeing her parents’ conflict, Alex lands in an adolescent psychiatric emergency unit. The dark muted shades of the early scenes are starkly whited out by the clinical setting with the heavy beat music. The film progresses with both dramatic and cinematographic periods of light, shade and varying levels of fear.
Alex meets three other young people in the Unit: Lara (Jella Haase), the striking daughter from an academic family, shy Fedja (Moritz Leu), who is being bullied at school; and violent Timo (Jannis Niewohner), who has just been moved from the closed ward. It is Alex who keeps the action moving. Her manic extroverted high energy whizzes around the other three like a sheep dog rounding up the flock. Much of the time is spent in group therapy settings, including art therapy at which Alex excels with at times humourous results.
Under the care of the unorthodox psychiatrist Dr. Wolff (Clemens Schick), they will spend a Christmas together that none of them will ever forget. Viewers are drawn in and forced to reflect on the meaning of family, friendship, and what it means to work together. The characters themselves have to reflect and their beliefs are challenged. We feel their discomfort and fear. We see how it is hard to be a group or team when the members are struggling to be whole sustainable individuals themselves. Again this message extends beyond the walls, beyond adolescence.
Directed by Theresa von Eltz, the complex screenplay is deftly crafted by Esther Bernstorff. Andre Feldhaus ensured that the songs had darkly appropriate lyrics and Kristian Leschner’s cinematography enhanced and complemented the psychological drama.
At times it feels as though 4 people may be too many to focus on. Yet the viewer does get involved with the characters and leaves the cinema wanting to know more especially about their histories.
This film is definitely worthy of its award, the Deutscher Filmpreis 2016.
http://www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/prj/fgf/enindex.htm?wt_sc=ozfilmfest