23/10/2009

This week, Constantin is launching (yesterday in Germany and today in Austria) a fictional biopic about one of the most intriguing legends in history: the life of Pope Joan, a young 9th-century German woman who is said to have usurped the papacy by hiding her real gender and, having been seduced by a member of the clergy, was unmasked when she gave birth in public.

Pope Joan [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is all the more eagerly-awaited as it is the work of director Sönke Wortmann, who has enjoyed immense success at the German box office. At 50 years of age, her filmography includes a series of hits, from Acting It Out (a cult film for many fans, which launched the career of Jürgen Vogel and ran for a year in several theatres) and The Most Desired Man (at the time, the best-performing German film since the war with over 6.5m admissions) in the early 1990s, to the extremely popular football-themed films The Miracle of Bern (2003) and Germany: A Summer’s Fairytale [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2006).

Pope Joan was originally to be directed by Volker Schlöndorff, but following disagreements the project was handed to Wortmann by Constantin. The latter company produced the film with UFA, radio-television network ARD, Rome-based Medusa and Catalan company Ikiru.

The script is adapted by the director and Heinrich Hadding from Donna Woolfolk Cross’ best-selling book and the title role is played by former Shooting Star Johanna Wokalek (Barefoot [+see also:
trailer
film profile], The Baader Meinhof Complex [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

In the film, she goes from being a young woman who has her life mapped out for her and is subjected to the strict rules of her society, to being a rebel who, for love, decides to defy convention to the point of disguising herself as a man in order to join the Benedictines and climb up the Church hierarchy.

Other European releases hitting German screens include Susanne Jäger and Pagonis Pagonakis’ German documentary Black on White, about the experiences of German investigative journalist and specialist Wallraff, who disguised himself as an African immigrant for a year in order to report on the level of racism in his country (distributed by X Verleih); and Jorgen Lerdam and Anders Sørensen’s German/Danish/Swedish animated children’s film Pettson & Findus IV Forget-Abilities (distributed by MFA).

Meanwhile, this week’s Austrian line-up includes Kurt Mündl’s comedy wildlife documentary Hogi's Family. This local production is also being released by Constantin.

(Translated from French)