Sandra Kaudelka and Sebastian Metz have been named joint winners of the Berlinale’s third “Made in Germany” prize.
The €15,000 cash prize towards the development of a new feature will be shared equally between the two filmmakers who had presented projects at last year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino.
At that time, both films were documentaries: Metz’s Metamorphosen was set in Russia, while Kaudelka’s Einzelkaempfer focused on cases of doping among East German athletes.
But Metz and Kudelka had each submitted fiction film treatments for consideration for the Made in Germany grant.
Metz’s project, entitled 274, which follows a man on his journey to Manila to end his life, had impressed the jury of film directors Andres Veiel and Frieder Schlaich and writer-producer Katja Eichinger by its “intensity” and “visual power”.
Meanwhile, Kaudelka’s Intershop centres on a love story in the setting of one of former East Germany’s hard currency Intershops.
According to Perspektive...
The €15,000 cash prize towards the development of a new feature will be shared equally between the two filmmakers who had presented projects at last year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino.
At that time, both films were documentaries: Metz’s Metamorphosen was set in Russia, while Kaudelka’s Einzelkaempfer focused on cases of doping among East German athletes.
But Metz and Kudelka had each submitted fiction film treatments for consideration for the Made in Germany grant.
Metz’s project, entitled 274, which follows a man on his journey to Manila to end his life, had impressed the jury of film directors Andres Veiel and Frieder Schlaich and writer-producer Katja Eichinger by its “intensity” and “visual power”.
Meanwhile, Kaudelka’s Intershop centres on a love story in the setting of one of former East Germany’s hard currency Intershops.
According to Perspektive...
- 1/14/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mostly Martha" is a mostly undercooked tale about food and love and how if you want to make either, things have to get a little messy. For the most part, the ingredients are there. But an unwillingness to explore beyond the surfaces of her characters prevents Nettelbeck's film from coming together.
While the German film does achieve touching moments, especially those involving a young girl finding a home in a busy kitchen, "Mostly Martha" is too weak and generic to attract business in North America beyond a couple of weeks in urban areas.
Martha (Martina Gedeck) is the perfectionist head chef in a gourmet restaurant in Hamburg. She has no life outside of her spotless kitchen. Then an auto accident kills her sister and leaves Martha to care for an 8-year-old niece, Lina (Maxine Foerste). (Unless the fault lies with the English subtitles, Martha's familial relationship to the young girl is needlessly unclear for much of the film.) While she is coping with the often grumpy child, the restaurant's owner (Sibylle Canonnica) hires a scruffy but charming Italian sous chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto), without consulting her chef. (This would never happen in any gourmet kitchen, but never mind.)
Naturally, conflicts arise with each new person. The loss of her mother has made Lina temperamental and gloomy. Despite living with "the second-best chef in Hamburg," she won't eat. Meanwhile, Martha's Teutonic precision clashes repeatedly with Mario's Latin casualness. Predictably, one problem solves the other. Hurting for a baby-sitter, Martha brings Lina to work one evening. Mario then coaxes her to eat his pasta. Soon Martha is looking at Mario in a new light.
The main problem here is that Martha is a real head-scratcher. OK, so she is anal and obsessed with food. Aren't most three-star chefs? But why is Martha emotionally stunted? Why is she not interested in the nice architect (Ulrich Thomsen) who lives downstairs? Why does she go to a shrink and talk about nothing but food? What is it about her relationship with her sister or parents -- who are never once mentioned -- that makes her life so joyless? Why does she not even know where to find Lina's father (Diego Ribon)?
The back stories for every character are missing. People's behavior comes from script directions rather than inner lives. And how will they change over the course of the movie is all too obvious.
Nettelbeck has clearly borrowed from one of the best restaurant movies ever, "Big Night": Everyone is passionate over food. A chef berates customers for not appreciating her cooking. "Classic Italian" music dominates the soundtrack -- i.e., Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Paolo Conte and others. But the movie fails to capture the things that made "Big Night" so wonderful -- the interplay of food and life, the beautifully realized characters operating under stress, the quiet observations of idiosyncratic behavior.
Despite the sketchy writing, Gedeck handles her character's emotional shifts adroitly while Castellitto, dubbed almost imperceptibly into German, keeps the earthy Italian chef from tumbling into cliche. Technical credits are solid with Michael Bertl's lensing of wintry Hamburg giving the film a romantic feel not usually associated with that city.
MOSTLY MARTHA
Paramount Classics
A Pandora Film Produktion presentation of a Pandora/Kinowelt Filmproduktion/Prisma Fillm/T&C Film/Palomar production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Christoph Friedel, Karl Baumgartner
Director of photography: Michael Bertl
Production designer: Thomas Freudenthal
Music: Manfred Eicher
Costume designer: Bettina Helmi
Editor: Mona Brauer
Cast:
Martha Klein: Martina Gedeck
Lina: Maxine Foerste
Mario: Sergio Castellitto
Frida: Sibylle Canonnica
Sam: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
While the German film does achieve touching moments, especially those involving a young girl finding a home in a busy kitchen, "Mostly Martha" is too weak and generic to attract business in North America beyond a couple of weeks in urban areas.
Martha (Martina Gedeck) is the perfectionist head chef in a gourmet restaurant in Hamburg. She has no life outside of her spotless kitchen. Then an auto accident kills her sister and leaves Martha to care for an 8-year-old niece, Lina (Maxine Foerste). (Unless the fault lies with the English subtitles, Martha's familial relationship to the young girl is needlessly unclear for much of the film.) While she is coping with the often grumpy child, the restaurant's owner (Sibylle Canonnica) hires a scruffy but charming Italian sous chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto), without consulting her chef. (This would never happen in any gourmet kitchen, but never mind.)
Naturally, conflicts arise with each new person. The loss of her mother has made Lina temperamental and gloomy. Despite living with "the second-best chef in Hamburg," she won't eat. Meanwhile, Martha's Teutonic precision clashes repeatedly with Mario's Latin casualness. Predictably, one problem solves the other. Hurting for a baby-sitter, Martha brings Lina to work one evening. Mario then coaxes her to eat his pasta. Soon Martha is looking at Mario in a new light.
The main problem here is that Martha is a real head-scratcher. OK, so she is anal and obsessed with food. Aren't most three-star chefs? But why is Martha emotionally stunted? Why is she not interested in the nice architect (Ulrich Thomsen) who lives downstairs? Why does she go to a shrink and talk about nothing but food? What is it about her relationship with her sister or parents -- who are never once mentioned -- that makes her life so joyless? Why does she not even know where to find Lina's father (Diego Ribon)?
The back stories for every character are missing. People's behavior comes from script directions rather than inner lives. And how will they change over the course of the movie is all too obvious.
Nettelbeck has clearly borrowed from one of the best restaurant movies ever, "Big Night": Everyone is passionate over food. A chef berates customers for not appreciating her cooking. "Classic Italian" music dominates the soundtrack -- i.e., Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Paolo Conte and others. But the movie fails to capture the things that made "Big Night" so wonderful -- the interplay of food and life, the beautifully realized characters operating under stress, the quiet observations of idiosyncratic behavior.
Despite the sketchy writing, Gedeck handles her character's emotional shifts adroitly while Castellitto, dubbed almost imperceptibly into German, keeps the earthy Italian chef from tumbling into cliche. Technical credits are solid with Michael Bertl's lensing of wintry Hamburg giving the film a romantic feel not usually associated with that city.
MOSTLY MARTHA
Paramount Classics
A Pandora Film Produktion presentation of a Pandora/Kinowelt Filmproduktion/Prisma Fillm/T&C Film/Palomar production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Christoph Friedel, Karl Baumgartner
Director of photography: Michael Bertl
Production designer: Thomas Freudenthal
Music: Manfred Eicher
Costume designer: Bettina Helmi
Editor: Mona Brauer
Cast:
Martha Klein: Martina Gedeck
Lina: Maxine Foerste
Mario: Sergio Castellitto
Frida: Sibylle Canonnica
Sam: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 8/13/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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