23/11/2006

Starting today, reputed London arthouse cinema Le Curzon Soho is hosting the 9th German Film Festival (November 23-26).

Opening the event is Eden, a story of love and chocolate by Michael Hofmann (see interview), which conquered international festivals from Rotterdam (Tiscali Audience Award and Lions Club Award) to Tribeca (New York), to Pesaro (Audience Award) and Warsaw.

In a second interview with Cineuropa, the director expressed how happy he was to have won the Grand Prize at the recent Eurasia Festival held in Almaty, Kazakhstan. "People are very warm and despite the great titles in competition, the festival is really ambitious, they are trying to become the ‘Cannes of the East’ and there were know names in the competition section, but they all fell in love with Eden and called my main actor, Josef Ostendorf", a ‘Messiah’, which is a quite nice description".

Hofmann pointed out that he was also very happy that Eden has found a distributor in the UK (ICA) and is being presented in London. He regrets that the film has not had the same luck in France. "Perhaps it is not really acceptable for a German to talk about good cuisine there, who knows…".

Eden – whose world sales are being handled by The Match Factory – will be screened in London in the presence of its lead actress Charlotte Roche.

Other films on the London festival programme include smash hit The Free Will by Matthias Glasner (sales: Bavaria Film International); Matthias Luthardt’s Pingpong [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matthias Luthardt
interview: Sebastian Urzendowsky
film profile], a Cannes title that opened in Germany last week (sales by Media Luna Entertainment); Hounded [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Angelina Maccarone, whose UK release will be handled by Millivres Multi Media (MMM); Warchild by Christian Wagner; and Molly's Way [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Emily Atef, which will be brought to British screens by Dog Woof Pictures.

Closing the festival is the charming Summer in Berlin [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Andreas Dresen, a tale told with finesse about a summer in the life of two friends (Telepool).

(Translated from French)