30/11/2006

The German film of the week – released today through X Verleih – marks the directorial debut of Franka Potente, known internationally for her role in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola, Run! (1998). Potente’s debut feature is an original comedy in black and white which she has written herself and is based on a the silent film era, when cinema was just in its infancy: Digging for Belladonna (Der die Tollkirsche ausgräbt) is set in 1918.

The heroine, Cecilie (Emilia Sparagna), is to be married off by her parents to a rich man who doesn’t love her. On the eve of the wedding, the family finds a strange, 21st century mummy in the garden, with which Cecilie immediately falls in love, but she has to use magic and belladonna to get what she wants. The film is an X-Filme Creative Pool production.

Meanwhile, Progress are releasing the documentary, Straßensänger und Kaiser wollt' ich werden - Ernst Fuchs, in which Professor Jürgen Haase retraces the career of Viennese artist Ernst Fuchs, a painter often compared to Bosch and Dürer who not only founded the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, but also tried his hand at other disciplines (composing music, philosophy, sculpture and architecture) and had 16 children with seven women.

German audiences will be treated to two German co-productions: Bye Bye Blackbird [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (co-produced with France and Luxembourg), the debut feature by Robinson Savary whose hero Joseph (played by James Thiérrée, great-grandson of Charlie Chaplin), depressed, suddenly discovers circus and acrobatics (dist. Reverse Angle International GmbH), and Thomas Imbach’s Lenz [+see also:
trailer
film profile] , a slightly offbeat film about a director who stops working to go to Zermatt to be with his ex-wife and son (Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek).

The only other European title on release this week is UK comedy/horror Severance [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Christopher Smith (Splendid).

(Translated from French)