29/08/2007

A total of eight German films and co-productions will be shown this year at the 55th San Sebastian International Film Festival (September 20-29). The German film Reclaim Your Brain [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Hans Weingartner will vie for the Golden Shell in Official Competition. The film tells the story of television producer Rainer, who has achieved success through stupid, vulgar TV shows and seems to have everything: money, a luxurious penthouse, an expensive car and a pretty girlfriend. That is, until the day he meets Pegah and joins a gang of unemployed outsiders who get him thinking about the dumbing down of society through the medium of television. Rainer finally decides to fight against this.

In addition, Esteban Schroeder’s co-production Matar a Todos (Argentina/Chile/Uruguay/Germany) will be shown.

The documentary Earth by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield (Germany/UK) has also been invited in official selection, but out of competition.

The Calling Game by Felix Randau will be shown in the Zabaltegi/New Directors section, which is dedicated to new films by young directors. The film centres on a broken young woman who tries to obtain human warmth and affection by calling strangers and arousing their sympathy by pretending to be a child suffering from a fatal disease. However, when she forms a tenuous friendship with one of her victims she slowly begins to become whole.

The thematic retrospective Cold Fever is this year dedicated to the new Nordic cinema and will feature four German co-productions: Cold Fever by Fridrik Fridriksson (Iceland/Norway/Germany/UK), Hilmar Oddson’s Cold Light (Sweden/Denmark/Germany), Bjoern Runge’s Daybreak (Iceland/US/Denmark/Germany/Japan) and Kristin Lavranasdatter by Liv Ullmann (Germany/Norway/Sweden).

Volker Schloendorff will be presented with the Bravo Award of the Spanish bishops during the festival for his film The Ninth Day.