Starnberg: What the Five Lakes Film Festival has to offer – Munich

When you look at world events over the past few months, you can get scared and anxious: The war in Ukraine, concerns about Taiwan, climate change and the never-ending pandemic will probably keep us busy for a long time. When looking at the program of this year’s Five Lakes Film Festival you encounter the same topics: Here, too, it is about Ukraine, Taiwan, climate and pandemic.

Should you be afraid of that? No, not really: the artistic preoccupation with the problems of our time enables perspectives beyond the headlines. In the cinema you are in company and still alone, you can think about what you have seen and then discuss it. And face to face, which in times of hate comments and rampant dogmatism might be an interesting experience for some. Or as festival director Matthias Helwig says: “People come together, see intensive images and talk to each other.”

The documentary “Into the Ice” about a climate researcher in Greenland can be seen in the “Climate & Cinema” series.

(Photo: FSFF)

The festival as a space for social discourse: That is what the 16th edition of the Five Lakes Film Festival is all about, which will be presenting 130 films over twelve days from Wednesday, August 24th, in cinemas and open-air venues in Starnberg, Gauting, Seefeld and Wessling. It will be opened at the Strandbad Starnberg with the German feature film “All want to be loved”, which was recently shown at the Munich Film Festival. Director Katharina Woll and leading actress Anne Ratte-Polle want to personally present the tragic comedy about a stressed psychotherapist.

The festival focus is on Central European films, including German, Italian and French films as well as Ukrainian cinema. Two years ago, the Ukraine was the festival’s guest country. This year, director Maryna Er Gorbach, who comes from Kyiv, is expected as a guest: she is to present her film “Klondike” on September 3, about a family in their eastern Ukrainian village 2014 the war is coming.

Sandra Hüller receives the Hannelore Elsner Prize

The festival has also been dedicated to the island republic of Taiwan for several years: on August 30, two Taiwanese short films and the feature film “American Girl” (as a German premiere) will be shown in Gauting. Even if the title might suggest it, it’s not about Nancy Pelosi: The visit of the President of the US House of Representatives to Taipei at the beginning of August, which attracted attention around the world, is likely to increase awareness of this item on the agenda. The films in the “Odeon” series (about music, dance, literature or art) or the “Climate & Cinema” series also deserve attention: in the latter, documentaries about a climate researcher in Greenland (“Into the Ice”), the Fridays-for -Future movement (“Tout Commence”) or mountain farmers in Austria (“Alpenland”) shown. Among other things, the “Cinema & Climate Award” will be presented on the steamer trip across Lake Starnberg, which is taking place again after a two-year break.

Cinema: A highlight of the festival is the cinematic steamer trip.

A highlight of the festival is the cinematic steamer trip.

(Photo: FSFF)

The steamer trip scheduled for August 29th has many fans, it is also a kind of unique selling point: at which festival can you glide on a ship into the evening sun and watch films at the same time? Two screens will be stretched out on the “MS Starnberg” this evening, showing short films and a hundred-year-old silent film (“Grandma’s Boy” with Harold Lloyd) with live musical accompaniment. The Cinemamobile in the Pfarrstadel Weßling is also unusual: the open-air cinema truck burned down a year ago, but has since been restored. The Austrian documentary “Der Bauer und der Bobo” (The Farmer and Bobo) or the German children’s film “Ente gut! Girls alone at home” are on the program here. The latter is in honor of Norbert Lechner: The Bavarian director has been a guest at the Five Lakes Film Festival several times, this year the retrospective is dedicated to him, and six of his films are on the program.

Many guests from the film industry have announced themselves, including Saralisa Volm with her directorial debut “The Forest Is Silent”, Uli Decker with her very personal family documentary “Anima – My Father’s Clothes”, Cem Kaya (“Love, D-Mark and the Death”), Carolin Schmitz (“Mother”) or Hanna Doose (“When are you coming to kiss my wounds”). Iris Berben will probably get the most attention; she is the guest of honor at the festival and will present three of her films on August 27th and 28th. The winner of the Hannelore Elsner Prize is also a well-known and celebrated actress: Sandra Hüller is coming to Starnberg on the last day of the festival; Three films with her will be shown, including the international festival and cinema hit “Toni Erdmann”.

Cinema: Guest of honor in Starnberg: actress Iris Berben.

Guest of honor in Starnberg: actress Iris Berben.

(Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

New films by the Austrian Ulrich Seidl (“Rimini”) and the Swiss Michael Koch (“Drii Winter”) as well as productions from Romania, Poland and Belgium compete for the main prize of the festival, the “Five Lakes Film Prize”. The award ceremony will take place on September 3rd in the Breitwand cinema in Gauting. Every evening at 7 p.m., filmmakers talk about their work there – and admission is free. There will also be discussions at the film talks by the lake on September 4th: The directors Marcus H. Rosenmüller, Annika Pinske and Pepe Danquart will come to the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing; the title of the discussion round is “tragicomedy cinema”. More precisely, it is about the course that cinema should take after the pandemic. Even if this still doesn’t want to end, it’s worth taking a look into the future, into hopefully better cinema times.

16. Five Lakes Film Festival, Wed., Aug. 24, to Sun., Sep. 4, various locations, www.fsff.de

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