| GerMania: New German Cinema
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| | This year Espoo Ciné celebrates new German cinema. Many films in the series, despite being German, focus on very global issues. Several of these films focus on the collisions between religion and a modern, western way of life. Idelogical conflicts also arise from themes such as politics, war and poverty. Still, the GerMania series also offers fresh comedy and epic historical drama.
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Faith (Shahada) |
| Burhan Qurbani's Faith (Shahada) delves deep into the contradictions between Islam and the western way of life. By following the intertwined lives of a group of people in Berlin, the film asks what it means to lead a religious life today, and how to navigate among fundamentalist and liberal views of faith.
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Whe We Leave (Die Fremde) | | Su Turhan's Ayla and Feo Aladağ's When We Leave (Die Fremde) focus particularly on the position of women in Islam. Defining how to be a western woman and a Muslim is not always an easy taks, and in both films the female protagonists struggle with adhering to their families' wishes while keeping the freedom they believe in.
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The Day Will Come (Es kommt der Tag) | | Past and present idelogies prove problematic also in Susanne Schneider's The Day Will Come (Es kommt der Tag). In the film, Judith tends to a vinery and her family, when, suddenly, a young woman arrives to demand answers for events that took place in Judith's youth. What will come of family life as Judith's past connections to a radical political movement begin to unravel?
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Same Same but Different | | The protagonist of Buck's Same Same but Different, Ben, can't help but question his views about the world either. Ben becomes painfully aware of social inequality on a global scale and of his own privileged position as a western man when he meets a Cambodian bar girl on his travels in the country.
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The Hunter (Shekarchi)
| | Rafi Pitts' The Hunter (Shekarchi) and Lancelot von Naso's Ceasefire (Waffenstillstand) place their events in the Middle East. The politically charged The Hunter portrays the city of Tehran and the hopelessness of a man, who has lost his family, with strikingly dark images.
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Ceasefire (Waffenstillstand) | | Ceasefire, then, focuses on the war in Iraq in a dramatic, yet realistic, manner. In the film, an aid worker and a war journalist looking for the perfect story decide to arrange a risky goods transportation to a besieged medical facility.
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Henry of Navarre (Henri 4)
| | On a very different note, Jo Baier's Henry of Navarre (Henri 4) is an impressively made historical drama set in 16th century France. The film centers on the mass killings of Huguenots, allegedly organized by the mother of the king, from the point of view of Henry IV set to marry Margot, the king's daughter.
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Whisky with Vodka (Whisky mit Wodka)
| | New German comedy is represented by Andreas Dresen's Whisky with Vodka (Whisky mit Wodka). An aging movie actor, Otto Kullberg, fumbles badly on the shoot of his new film, and the reason is soon found to be his propensity for alcohol. To save the film, an acting double is hired, but the troubles are far from over.
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Soul Kitchen | | For more German comedy, also remember the opening film of the festival, Soul Kitchen. The music-intensive film by Fatih Akın, which delves into the restaurant business in Hamburg, has charmed audiences on many festivals.
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