The last love of Franz Kafka, the celebrated Czech author of “Metamorphosis,” will be portrayed in romantic drama “The Glory of Life.” TrustNordisk has boarded international sales ahead of Cannes, while Majestic is handling the domestic rights.
Currently shooting, “The Glory of Life” is directed by Georg Maas (“Two Lives”) and is inspired by the love story between Kafka and Dora Diamant.
The period drama was penned by Michael Gutmann and Maas. Producers are Helge Sasse and Solveig Fina for Tempest Film and Tommy Pridnig for Lotus Film.
Kafka and Diamant met in 1923 on the Baltic Sea coast, a year before the author died from tuberculosis. The worldly wise Diamant, who was working in a Jewish community, took him to Berlin, and as Kafka’s health deteriorates rapidly, they traveled together to a sanatorium in Austria. The memory of their time together will shape Diamant for the rest of her life.
Currently shooting, “The Glory of Life” is directed by Georg Maas (“Two Lives”) and is inspired by the love story between Kafka and Dora Diamant.
The period drama was penned by Michael Gutmann and Maas. Producers are Helge Sasse and Solveig Fina for Tempest Film and Tommy Pridnig for Lotus Film.
Kafka and Diamant met in 1923 on the Baltic Sea coast, a year before the author died from tuberculosis. The worldly wise Diamant, who was working in a Jewish community, took him to Berlin, and as Kafka’s health deteriorates rapidly, they traveled together to a sanatorium in Austria. The memory of their time together will shape Diamant for the rest of her life.
- 5/16/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The new film by the German director will star actors Justus von Dohnányi and Hans Löw alongside newcomer Claude Heinrich as the main protagonist. The shoot for the adaptation of the novel Wir sind dann wohl die Angehörigen (lit. “We Are the Relatives”), written in 2018 by young German musician and first-time author Johann Scheerer, has started, helmed by director Hans-Christian Schmid, who wrote the script for this family drama together with Michael Gutmann. Schmid, best known for films such as Crazy (starring Robert Stadlober and Tom Schilling) and Requiem (starring Sandra Hüller), is producing the film together with Britta Knöller and their production company, 23/5 Filmproduktion. Through the unusual and enthralling perspective of a 13-year-old, the film tells the story of the abduction of Jan Philipp Reemtsma, which actually took place in 1996. Johann Scheerer, Reemtsma's son, converted his experience into a novel. He paints the portrait of a...
Caroline Link to direct.
Warner Bros Germany has boarded as a co-producer and taken all distribution rights for the territory on Caroline Link’s adaptation of Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which is set for production in May.
The €7.5m project is from Sommerhaus Filmproduction, with Ditti Bürgin-Brook and La Siala Entertainment as co-producers.
The screenplay is from Anna Brüggemann, Michael Gutmann and Link, whose 2001 feature Nowhere In Africa was an Oscar winner. Casting is now underway and shooting will take place in Berlin, Bavaria, Switzerland, Prague and Paris.
Separately, Thomas Stuber’s Berlin Competition title In The Aisles, which Sommerhaus duo Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach also co-produced, has been picked up for Us distribution by Music Box Films. Beta Cinema inked the deal on the title, which stars Franz Rogowski and Sandra Hüller.
Warner Bros Germany has boarded as a co-producer and taken all distribution rights for the territory on Caroline Link’s adaptation of Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which is set for production in May.
The €7.5m project is from Sommerhaus Filmproduction, with Ditti Bürgin-Brook and La Siala Entertainment as co-producers.
The screenplay is from Anna Brüggemann, Michael Gutmann and Link, whose 2001 feature Nowhere In Africa was an Oscar winner. Casting is now underway and shooting will take place in Berlin, Bavaria, Switzerland, Prague and Paris.
Separately, Thomas Stuber’s Berlin Competition title In The Aisles, which Sommerhaus duo Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach also co-produced, has been picked up for Us distribution by Music Box Films. Beta Cinema inked the deal on the title, which stars Franz Rogowski and Sandra Hüller.
- 2/20/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
The screenplay is from Anna Brüggemann, Michael Gutmann and Link, whose Nowhere In Africa was an Oscar winner.
Warner Bros Germany has boarded as a co-producer and taken all distribution rights for the territory on Caroline Link’s adaptation of Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which is set for production in May.
The €7.5m project is from Sommerhaus Filmproduction, with Ditti Bürgin-Brook and La Siala Entertainment as co-producers.
The screenplay is from Anna Brüggemann, Michael Gutmann and Link, whose 2001 feature Nowhere In Africa was an Oscar winner. Casting is now underway and shooting will take place in Berlin, Bavaria, Switzerland, Prague and Paris.
Separately, Thomas Stuber’s Berlin Competition title In The Aisles, which Sommerhaus duo Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach also co-produced, has been picked up for Us distribution by Music Box Films. Beta Cinema inked the deal on the title, which stars Franz Rogowski and Sandra Hüller.
Warner Bros Germany has boarded as a co-producer and taken all distribution rights for the territory on Caroline Link’s adaptation of Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which is set for production in May.
The €7.5m project is from Sommerhaus Filmproduction, with Ditti Bürgin-Brook and La Siala Entertainment as co-producers.
The screenplay is from Anna Brüggemann, Michael Gutmann and Link, whose 2001 feature Nowhere In Africa was an Oscar winner. Casting is now underway and shooting will take place in Berlin, Bavaria, Switzerland, Prague and Paris.
Separately, Thomas Stuber’s Berlin Competition title In The Aisles, which Sommerhaus duo Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach also co-produced, has been picked up for Us distribution by Music Box Films. Beta Cinema inked the deal on the title, which stars Franz Rogowski and Sandra Hüller.
- 2/20/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Let’s play a quick game of word association. ’Harry Potter’ is to ‘Krabat’ as Britain is to Germany. You can see that when comparing the jovial, almost apologetic stylings of ‘Harry Potter’ against the hard melancholy that dominates ‘Krabat,’ the new adaptation of the 1971 novel from director Marco Kreuzpaintner. ’Krabat’ is a film grounded within a sense of reality, and Kreuzpaintner’s dominance in filmmaking brings the mixture of real settings and character arcs and the fantastical ideas of black magic into a film that succeeds in several areas where many of the ‘Harry Potter’ films simply could not.
David Kross of ‘The Reader’ plays Krabat, a boy who wanders with his friends in the countryside of a Germany near the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Hearing a calling from a distance, one that tells him he is special, Krabat leaves his friends and comes upon a mill.
David Kross of ‘The Reader’ plays Krabat, a boy who wanders with his friends in the countryside of a Germany near the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Hearing a calling from a distance, one that tells him he is special, Krabat leaves his friends and comes upon a mill.
- 9/26/2009
- by Kirk
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cologne, Germany -- A not-so-happy holiday is the focus in the new project, "Home For Christmas" by award-winning Norwegian director Bent Hamer ("O'Horten").
Hamer has co-written the script, set in a tiny Norwegian town on Christmas Eve, with writer Levi Henriksen. Cologne-based Pandora Film, who produced "O'Horten," is on board, together with German European public broadcasters Zdf and Arte. The Nrw Film Board is backing the project with €400,000 ($560,000) in production subsidies. Hamer plans to shoot portions of the film in the Nrw region.
Also benefiting from Nrw's largesse is "Generation X" author Douglas Coupland, who has received backing to adapt his own novel "Eleanor Rigby" for the screen. The book tells the story of a lonely woman whose life is changed by an unexpected meeting with the son she gave up for adoption. Coupland is adapting his book for Cologne-based production house Tatfilm ("The Last King of Scotland").
Director Thomas Riedelsheimer,...
Hamer has co-written the script, set in a tiny Norwegian town on Christmas Eve, with writer Levi Henriksen. Cologne-based Pandora Film, who produced "O'Horten," is on board, together with German European public broadcasters Zdf and Arte. The Nrw Film Board is backing the project with €400,000 ($560,000) in production subsidies. Hamer plans to shoot portions of the film in the Nrw region.
Also benefiting from Nrw's largesse is "Generation X" author Douglas Coupland, who has received backing to adapt his own novel "Eleanor Rigby" for the screen. The book tells the story of a lonely woman whose life is changed by an unexpected meeting with the son she gave up for adoption. Coupland is adapting his book for Cologne-based production house Tatfilm ("The Last King of Scotland").
Director Thomas Riedelsheimer,...
- 6/29/2009
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
BERLIN -- Hans-Christian Schmid's refugee drama "Distant Lights" and Soenke Wortmann's soccer epic "The Miracle of Bern" were the big winners at this year's Bavarian Film Prize awards ceremony Friday. "Distant Lights", which follows the stories of several eastern European refugees trying to sneak across the border to Germany, won the €200,000 ($250,000) production prize for best film, with Hans-Christian Schmid and Michael Gutmann snatching the €10,000 ($12,500) best screenplay nod. Wortmann's recreation of the German national soccer team's come-from-behind victory in the 1954 World Cup also scored a double, taking the €20,000 ($25,000) best director prize as well the €10,000 ($12,500) supporting actress award for "Bern" star Johanna Gastdorf.
- 1/19/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Berlin International Film Festival
BERLIN -- Hans-Christian Schmid's "Lichter" (Distant Lights) is about two tough border towns that swarm with smugglers, refugees and capitalist exploiters. One is the Polish town of Slubice, filled with Russians and Eastern Europeans dying -- in some cases, literally -- to slip across the river to greater economic opportunities in the second town, Frankfurt-on-Oder, in Germany. It's a heartless environment where people exploit one another and innocence is crushed.
Schmid and co-writer Michael Gutmann plunge the viewer into a chaotic 48-hour period where a large cast of German, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian characters struggle for survival. This is an up-to-the-minute portrait of the turmoil along the Polish-German border, with principal photography having been completed only three months ago. More festival appearances and European distribution appear certain for this impressive competition film, though its bleakness works against commerciality.
Schmid and Gutmann certainly take a discouraging view of humanity along this border. Nothing works out for anybody here. Any glimmer of hope that may, metaphorically, be contained in the film's English title, "Distant Lights", is distant indeed.
A group of refugees gets dumped by cruel smugglers in Poland rather than in Germany as promised. They split up to wander into increasing peril. One Ukrainian family encounters an obliging taxi driver who desperately needs money to pay for his daughter's Communion dress.
He is short on money because his wife has lost her illegal job across the border, working for a discount mattress store owner who has gone broke because competitors have screwed him.
A cigarette smuggler lives in a dilapidated farm near Frankfurt with two sons who are in conflict over a young runaway girl each one fancies. A young female translator for the border police sympathizes with the plight of one captured refugee and decides to help him at all costs, even to her relationship with her German boyfriend. Another Polish translator earns her living by offering services to businessmen that go beyond linguistic. This comes as a shock to a former German boyfriend who has a chance encounter with her two years after having abandoned her.
When Schmid does find humanity in these situations, it usually happens when business or politics has no importance. Otherwise, capitalist ruthlessness holds sway over all human transactions on both sides of the river.
The film's large cast splendidly conveys the increasing tensions as the stakes rise with every minute over the 48 hours. Bogumil Godfrejow's mobile camera sticks close to the characters, scrambling like a documentary crew to keep up with people on the go. A melancholy score by a quartet known as the Notwist underscores the almost helpless binds that trap most of the characters.
LICHTER
Claussen + Wobke Filmproduction with ZDF in cooperation with Arte
Credits:
Director: Hans-Christian Schmid
Screenwriters: Hans-Christian Schmid, Michael Gutmann
Producers: Jakob Claussen, Thomas Wobke
Executive producer: Uli Putz
Director of photography: Bogumil Godfrejow
Production designer: Christian M. Goldbeck
Music: The Notwist
Costume designer: Ulrike Scharfschwerdt
Editor: Hansjorg Weissbrich, Bernd Schlegel
Cast:
Kolja: Ivan Shvedoff
Dimitri: Sergej Frolov
Anna: Anna Janowskaja
Andreas: Sebastian Urzendowsky
Katharina: Alice Dwyer
Marko: Martin Kiefer
Maik: Tom Jahn
Ingo: Devid Striesow
Simone: Claudia Geisler
Antoni
Zbigniew Zamachowski
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
BERLIN -- Hans-Christian Schmid's "Lichter" (Distant Lights) is about two tough border towns that swarm with smugglers, refugees and capitalist exploiters. One is the Polish town of Slubice, filled with Russians and Eastern Europeans dying -- in some cases, literally -- to slip across the river to greater economic opportunities in the second town, Frankfurt-on-Oder, in Germany. It's a heartless environment where people exploit one another and innocence is crushed.
Schmid and co-writer Michael Gutmann plunge the viewer into a chaotic 48-hour period where a large cast of German, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian characters struggle for survival. This is an up-to-the-minute portrait of the turmoil along the Polish-German border, with principal photography having been completed only three months ago. More festival appearances and European distribution appear certain for this impressive competition film, though its bleakness works against commerciality.
Schmid and Gutmann certainly take a discouraging view of humanity along this border. Nothing works out for anybody here. Any glimmer of hope that may, metaphorically, be contained in the film's English title, "Distant Lights", is distant indeed.
A group of refugees gets dumped by cruel smugglers in Poland rather than in Germany as promised. They split up to wander into increasing peril. One Ukrainian family encounters an obliging taxi driver who desperately needs money to pay for his daughter's Communion dress.
He is short on money because his wife has lost her illegal job across the border, working for a discount mattress store owner who has gone broke because competitors have screwed him.
A cigarette smuggler lives in a dilapidated farm near Frankfurt with two sons who are in conflict over a young runaway girl each one fancies. A young female translator for the border police sympathizes with the plight of one captured refugee and decides to help him at all costs, even to her relationship with her German boyfriend. Another Polish translator earns her living by offering services to businessmen that go beyond linguistic. This comes as a shock to a former German boyfriend who has a chance encounter with her two years after having abandoned her.
When Schmid does find humanity in these situations, it usually happens when business or politics has no importance. Otherwise, capitalist ruthlessness holds sway over all human transactions on both sides of the river.
The film's large cast splendidly conveys the increasing tensions as the stakes rise with every minute over the 48 hours. Bogumil Godfrejow's mobile camera sticks close to the characters, scrambling like a documentary crew to keep up with people on the go. A melancholy score by a quartet known as the Notwist underscores the almost helpless binds that trap most of the characters.
LICHTER
Claussen + Wobke Filmproduction with ZDF in cooperation with Arte
Credits:
Director: Hans-Christian Schmid
Screenwriters: Hans-Christian Schmid, Michael Gutmann
Producers: Jakob Claussen, Thomas Wobke
Executive producer: Uli Putz
Director of photography: Bogumil Godfrejow
Production designer: Christian M. Goldbeck
Music: The Notwist
Costume designer: Ulrike Scharfschwerdt
Editor: Hansjorg Weissbrich, Bernd Schlegel
Cast:
Kolja: Ivan Shvedoff
Dimitri: Sergej Frolov
Anna: Anna Janowskaja
Andreas: Sebastian Urzendowsky
Katharina: Alice Dwyer
Marko: Martin Kiefer
Maik: Tom Jahn
Ingo: Devid Striesow
Simone: Claudia Geisler
Antoni
Zbigniew Zamachowski
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/14/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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