The 55th Hof Film Festival is taking place hybrid for the second time. – Munich

“Mackie Messer – Brecht’s Threepenny Film” is part of the retrospective with which Joachim Król is honored.

(Photo: Stephan Pick / Hofer Filmtage)

It’s nice that there are still certainties in uncertain times. So you can look forward to the Hof Film Festival which take place as a face-to-face event in the cinemas of the Franconian metropolis. In addition, a digital version is offered in which some of the films can be streamed from any location – even seven days after the actual end of the festival. This dual model has already proven itself in the previous year, in which it was also streamed, but in which the film community also met live in Hof at the end of October. A few days later the cinemas in Germany were closed for a very long time, so that was pretty perfect timing – at least for the film days.

Thorsten Schaumann’s timing is also perfect, right on time for the minute in front of a café in Munich’s Glockenbachviertel. The artistic director of Hof has visually changed a little, his half-length hair is now raspy-short, so the festival director’s hairstyle recognition value is no longer there. In this way he differs from his predecessor, the founder of the film day and decades-long director Heinz Badewitz, who wore the same Prince Eisenherz hairstyle until his death in 2016. In other respects too, Schaumann, who worked for a long time in international film sales and has headed the film festival for four years, has changed a few things.

While bathing joke relies on the charm of the same thing, on encounters, bratwursts or the annual football game, for example, his successor likes to try out new things, including late-night shows, pitching sessions or collaborations with other festivals. “But the focus is on the films, that will never change.” This is what Heinz Badewitz said a few years before his death at a meeting in Munich. Thorsten Schaumann sees it similarly, he has modernized the event, he doesn’t want to shake the foundations either. Films from all over the world will be shown on the six days of presence in Hof, a tradition there: this year there will be 69 feature films and 51 short films.

The autumn show of German cinema

However, Hof has become known as the “Autumn Show of German Cinema”, almost all of the republic’s major filmmakers have been here, from Mare Ade to Detlev Buck, Doris Dörrie, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Dominik Graf, Caroline Link, Christoph Schlingensief, Hans-Christian Schmid, Tom Tykwer and Wim Wenders. This year will also open with a German production, Peter Meister’s debut “The Black Square” is an art thief comedy on the high seas, with Bernhard Schütz, Jacob Matschenz and Sandra Hüller playing the main roles.

“The last year was exhausting for all of us,” said Schaumann at the meeting in Munich, because he wanted the audience to have fun at least in the cinema. “Square, black, funny”, he thinks the opening film, that is not a contradiction at all. Overall, he found that filmmakers today tell more extreme stories, with very personal insights or idiosyncratic dramas, as well as radical genre films. The artistic director speaks enthusiastically about all of his films, but then he’s completely festival director, that’s part of the job.

Cinema: Abel Ferrara's film "Zeros and Ones" will also be available online from Wednesday night.

Abel Ferrara’s film “Zeros and Ones” will also be available online from Wednesday night.

(Photo: Hof Film Festival)

This year, among other things, the new directorial work by regular guests like Julia von Heinz, Kida Khodr Ramadan or Rosa von Praunheim, by Abel Ferrara, Hannes Starz or Rachel Lang will be shown. Most of them are expected in Hof, as is the actor Joachim Królto which the retrospective is dedicated. The selection of films was a bit tedious this year, admits Schaumann. Many festivals and theatrical releases were postponed time and time again, and the creative minds didn’t want to commit themselves early on either. “Added to this was the uncertainty about the pandemic development,” he says, adding that it brought him many a sleepless night.

In uncertain times like these, there is hardly any planning security, as his colleagues Diana Iljine from the Munich Film Festival and Tom Bohn from Snowdance in Landsberg am Lech have complained about in recent months. “Basically we do two festivals,” says Schaumann, one in the Hofer Central and Scala cinemas, the other on the Internet. Last year it worked out quite well, despite very strict hygiene rules and a maximum capacity of 25 percent in the cinema, 4,700 guests were counted on site, and there were 17,000 hits online.

How to feel even more comfortable in the cinema than at home

Of course there is always room for improvement, he says, with the presentation or the platforms, for example. The live and web versions of the film days would of course be closely related, but both would have their own requirements. Online you don’t just show films, you also stream your own content, discussions with filmmakers, for example, or a new format called “Breakfast Club – The Breakfast Talk”. Thorsten Schaumann is an enthusiastic person, he approaches people and tells more in one hour than some filmmakers at the interview marathon.

He wants to reach new generations, so there are more school and training events. In addition, he wants to be the contact person all year round and therefore launched the “Hof Filmtage Rendezvous” in 2017: In this series, festival highlights are shown again in the presence of the makers; last year there were 35 online events. He doesn’t think much of the competition between cinema and streaming platforms, in the end it is the audience who decides what and where they want to see something.

The cinema has often been declared dead, it will also survive this change in the media landscape, Schaumann is certain of that. He also knows how: “It’s actually very simple, you just have to curate well, show a lot of presence and address people personally. They should feel even more comfortable in the cinema than at home.” Incidentally, this recipe can be used not only at film festivals, but also in the art house cinema. Then people come back too.

55th Hof International Film Festival, Tuesday, October 26th to Sunday, October 31st, www.hofer-filmtage.com

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