120 films from 52 countries, including 35 world premieres: Several works from the big festival in Cannes are also included, and the actress Alba Rohrwacher is also supposed to ensure international glamor.
Back to normal: Normally, people start yawning when an event is announced. But for the Munich Film Festival it sounds like a sweet promise. The largest summer film festival in Germany would like to do again what was not possible or only possible to a limited extent in the past two years of the pandemic: show films, enable encounters and exchange, stimulate discussions. “Culture and cinema need it,” said festival director Diana Iljine on Thursday morning at the presentation of the program 39th Film Festival. This will take place from June 23rd to July 2nd, in a long-missed “normality”, live and in front of an audience.
Gone are the days when the prime minister wanted to expand the film festival into an “international media festival”. Now it’s back to the cinemas. There are a total of eleven venues, in addition to proven festival cinemas such as the Rio Filmpalast, the Filmmuseum or the City Kinos, the outdoor version “Kino, Mond und Sterne”, the “Sugar Mountain” and the Gasteig HP8 are also on the list. “We’re showing 120 films from 52 countries, 35 of which are world premieres,” reveals Iljine. The opening film is the historical drama “Corsage”, in which Austrian director Marie Kreutzer tells the story of the mature Empress Sisi (Vicky Krieps).
At the opening, “Corsage” will be shown with Vicky Krieps as Empress Sisi.
(Photo: Ricardo Vaz Palma/Alamode Film)
The film was only recently shown in Cannes, from there comes another film with Krieps (“More Than Ever”) as well as the most recent directorial work by Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Broker”), Kirill Serebrennikov (“Tchaikovsky’s Wife”) or Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch (“Eight Mountains”). Laura Bispuri’s film “The Peacock Paradise” was also shown in Cannes. Its main actress is an old acquaintance of the film festival: the Italian Alba Rohrwacher has often been a guest in Munich, this year she received the Cine Merit Award.
Nine of the 15 German cinema films were directed by women
German filmmaking has traditionally played a major role: seven series and eight television films were invited to the “New German Television” series, and 15 films are shown in the “New German Cinema” series. It will be more diverse and existential, said the artistic director of the film festival, Christoph Gröner. Nine of the 15 German cinema films were directed by women.
In addition, new films by Klaus Lemke, Aron Lehmann, Adrian Goiginger and Doris Dörrie can be seen – the film festival’s homage is dedicated to the Munich director. New awards will be presented, including the Cine Rebels Award for cinematic rebels and cinematic innovators or the Cine Kindl Award for the best children’s film. An extensive supporting program is also planned, including the popular discussion rounds “Filmmakers Live” – in the Amerikahaus, the new festival centre. Tickets are from mid-June onwards on the film festival website and available via Munich Ticket.