Hollywood star Sophia Lillis
There are film faces that you think you’ve always known. American Sophia Lillis, 21, is one such phenomenon. Maybe because at first glance she looks so much like young Mia Farrow – thin, pale face, strawberry-blond pixie, big eyes. Like Farrow, she has acted in horror films, such as the fairytale production “Gretel & Hansel”. She had one of her first big roles in 2017 in the new edition of “Es”. Since then she has shot indie series such as “I Am Not Okay With This” or the role-playing game adaptation “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”. She was never a typical Hollywood teenager on the way to world fame – not bad luck, but a conscious decision.
Instead of being a walking brand in franchises between “Stranger Things” and “Game of Thrones”, Lillis lives out her joy in trying out roles and genres for as long as possible. It wasn’t until after high school that she realized she wanted to be an actress. There were already a few blockbusters behind her. In the summer she will be one of many star faces in Wes Anderson’s candy-colored boy scout world of “Asteroid City”.
She can currently be seen in the indie tragic comedy The Adults alongside Michael Cera and Hannah Gross. As a trio of siblings, they meet after three years of radio silence. Cera and Gross juggle their suppressed feelings back and forth like a hot lump of lava. As the little baby, Lillis can’t stand the tension and therefore keeps falling back into role-playing games from their childhood together. Comic voices, dance numbers and self-invented songs about rainbows are intended to bring the siblings back to a time when they could still share their feelings. While Cera stars here, Lillis keeps stealing the show with her annoyingly charming skipping plots. She turns childhood memories into a revue of embarrassed despair – if she has to be in the limelight, then at least with a grin on her face. Sofia Glasl
Comic Festival Munich: What is in the newspaper
One of the stars of newspaper comics: Garfield by Jim Davis, here fighting “Mother Nature” (excerpt from a Sunday strip).
(Photo: Jim Davis/Munich Comic Festival)
If you leaf through the list of available comics in the Munich City Library, you will come across a surprising number of good books. “Comic culture has been firmly anchored in Munich for many decades,” writes Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter in his welcoming address Munich Comic Festival, which has appropriately found its new main location in the city’s cultural center HP8. It’s a festival for all comic fans (until Sunday, June 11), with a publishing fair, signing campaigns, artist talks and drawing courses. The largest exhibit is dedicated to newspaper comics, which became popular in the United States in the late 19th century; the distribution model then became popular in the German economic boom, long before a comic book culture emerged in this country. The exhibition shows historical pages and original drawings of classics as well as current works such as the “Kängeru Comics” by Marc-Uwe Kling and Bernd Kissel, and the 50th birthday of Dik Browne’s “Hägar” is also appropriately acknowledged. Works by Lisa Frühbeis, José Homs, Denis Kitchen and Rudi Hurzlmeier can be seen in other exhibitions, with a focus on the comic country of the Czech Republic. Artists will also be guests for discussions with the public, including Kate Beaton, whose latest work “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” is one of the most exciting new releases of the day. Martina Knoben
Süssmayr picture book
Florian Süssmayr: Simple Paintings. Sorry Press, Munich. 15 euro
(Photo: Sorry Press)
“So young, so full of hate” is written on the front as if it were the title. It only says so on the painting that is printed on the cover: a row of bright block letters at the top of the canvas, which is otherwise of the same existential puddle-colored darkness as the painted counters, on which the Munich painter Florian Süssmayr otherwise used his last and very last glasses placed as if he were a bartender in the early hours of the morning… They have now bound around 100 such Süssmayr paintings into a paperback book with the Munich publisher Sorry Press and called the matter “Simple Paintings” (15 euros). Dark curtains, a Velázquez-Jesus, Tom-of-Finland-Gays and again and again scraps of headlines from the Picture-Newspaper: ballerina letters as punk rock riffs for synaesthetes. The most charming artist book in a long time. Also works as a delirious flip book. Peter Richter
Dorothee Oberlinger with Scarlatti
Giuseppe Scarlatti, “I portentosi effetti della madre natura”. Ensemble 1700 conducted by Dorothee Oberlinger.
(Photo: german harmonia mundi)
Giuseppe Scarlatti, said to be the grandson of the opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti, wrote about 30 operas to libretti by the most famous authors of the time: Pietro Metastasio and Carlo Goldoni. The latter was responsible for the comic pieces such as the opera “I portentosi effetti della madre natura” – the wondrous effects of mother nature. A fast-paced romantic comedy set in the kingdom of Mallorca. Frederick the Great once had it performed in the palace theater in Sanssouci, in 2022 the flautist and conductor Dorothee Oberlinger performed it there with her “Ensemble 1700” and recorded it on CD. After a colorful, turbulent overture, the complicated story begins, composed in the manner of the Neapolitan school, which was still formative for Mozart’s buffet. Helmut Mauro