20/09/2012 - New European films out in German cinemas include Haneke’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner, comedies, drama, and animation

Opposite Resident Evil: Retribution [+see also:
trailer
film profile], co-produced in Germany by Constantin who is also distributing the film, X Verleih today released a film in German cinemas that won Michael Haneke his first Cannes Palme d’Or and is now also to represent Austria in the race for a 2013 Oscar nomination. In Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Haneke
film profile], the cruelty omnipresent in the director of Funny Games’s filmography is no longer that of mankind but that of life, which comes and goes, with difficulty, forcing old lovers to part. This film features dignified and extremely moving performances by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, and is co-produced by Parisian production company Les Films du Losange, Viennese company Wega Filmproduktion, and X Filme Creative Pool in Berlin.

Adnan G. Köse’s German drama Kleine Morde [+see also:
trailer
film profile], produced by SteeWorX and distributed by StudioCanal, also poses grave questions. The story is set in a not-too-distant future in which crime has so soared that there is no longer a minimum age for criminal responsibility. Despite being only 12, Martin, a judge’s son who is angelical, studious, and passionate about law and justice finds himself accused of murder.

NFP is hedging its bets on a comedy, Hansjörg Thurn’s Unter Frauen [+see also:
trailer
film profile], produced by the Berlin-based Ninety-Minute Film, in which an inveterate male chauvinist (Sebastian Ströbel) passes over into a world only populated by women after he has an accident.

Another fresh European comedy is also out, distributed by Senator : James Huth’s Happiness Never Comes Alone [+see also:
trailer
film profile] with Sophie Marceau, the comedian Gad Elmaleh, and François Berléand. For children, Pandastorm Pictures has released Latvian-Estonian animation film Lotte and the Moonstone Secret [+see also:
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film profile] by Heiki Ernits and Janno Põldma.

This week’s new European films also include Swedish title The Importance of Tying Your Own Shoes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Lena Koppel, a dramatic comedy distributed by MFA whose presumptuous hero, who is both unemployed and struggling in his relationship, becomes an animator for a municipal theatre group for people with learning difficulties and ends up learning from his students. Pro-Fun is offering Guy Lee Thys’s Turkish-Belgian tale, Mixed Kebab, in which a Turkish Muslim living in Antwerp falls in love with another man, despite the associated taboos in his culture of origin. Also from Belgium is Tom Fassaert’s De Engel van Doel, a documentary about a Belgian village threatened by the extension of the Antwerp port. (distrib. Arsenal Institut).

(Translated from French)