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VENICE 2016 Germany

Venice welcomes a diverse German contingent led by Wim Wenders

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- A total of six German co-productions will be vying for the Venice Lions

Venice welcomes a diverse German contingent led by Wim Wenders
The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez by Wim Wenders

The Competition of the Venice International Film Festival (31 August to 10 September) features a total of six German co-productions, starting with cult German director Wim Wenders’ latest, The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez [+see also:
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(co-produced by his company, Neue Road Movies, with French partners), which will screen as a world premiere. In this title based on the eponymous stage play by Peter Handke, a man and woman talk about love on a beautiful midsummer day. Their conversation meanders through memories, their first sexual experiences, their longings and disappointments. The cast includes Sophie Semin, French actor Reda Kateb and Jens Harzer, with Nick Cave playing himself.

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Five more high-profile German-co-produced features will be vying for the Lions: two titles co-produced by X Filme Creative Pool, Martin Koolhoven’s Brimstone [+see also:
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Q&A: Martin Koolhoven
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(Netherlands/Belgium/France/United Kingdom/Sweden/Germany) and François Ozon’s Frantz [+see also:
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Q&A: François Ozon
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(France/Germany), both also selected at Toronto, as well as Andrei Konchalovsky’s Paradise [+see also:
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(involving the German outfit DRIFE Filmproduktion and Russia), Amat Escalante’s The Untamed [+see also:
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(Mexico/France/Norway/Denmark/Germany through Match Factory Productions), Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time [+see also:
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(United States/Germany through Sophisticated Films).

Austerlitz [+see also:
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by Sergei Loznitsa, produced in Germany by Imperativ Film, will be screened Out of Competition, while Ronny Trocker’s The Eremites [+see also:
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, a Zischlermann Filmproduktion title with Austrian minority partners, has been invited to the Horizons sidebar. Last year, Trocker’s film took part in the Venice European Gap-Financing Market, which gives European producers the opportunity to pitch their nearly completed projects to potential international financing partners. The film deals with the fate of a family of mountain farmers, and with the oppressive relationship of the mother, Marianne, to her son Albert. While the ageing woman is absolutely determined to spend the rest of her life in the isolated farm, her introvert son has already moved down into the valley several years before, in order to support the family, but he has been struggling to make contact with modern society. As the harsh mountain winter approaches again, Albert has to decide between the raw life he knows or the possibility of new prospects in the valley.

Maren Ade's critically acclaimed Toni Erdmann [+see also:
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Q&A: Maren Ade
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(co-produced by Komplizen Film and Missing Link Films with Austrian partners) will be featured in the Venice Days as one of the three finalists for the European Parliament's LUX Prize. The independent section is also presenting, in competition, Midi Z’s The Road to Mandalay [+see also:
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interview: Midi Z
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(co-produced by Bombay Berlin Film Production). In addition, Venice Classics will present the newly restored version of Veit Harlan’s The Great Sacrifice (Opfergang) (1944).

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