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American Women's Club of Hamburg  FilmFest Hamburg 2005: The Critics’ Choice Filmsby Mary W Originally published in the Currents Film Supplement 2005 Four prominent Hamburg film critics were invited to choose a film for the Prize of the Hamburg Film Critic (Der Preis der Hamburger Filmkritik) out of twelve films from twelve different countries. The critics included Lars-Olav Beier from Der Spiegel, Bernd Teichmann from Stern, Volker Behrens from the Hamburger Abendblatt and Dr. Frank Fingerhut from NDR 90,3. The prize was intended for an unusual, original view of the present. The films selected for consideration were: Adam’s Apples, Denmark Bashing, Japan
Cinema, aspirinas e urubus (Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures), Brazil L’Iceberg (The Iceberg), Belgium Iron Island, Iran Janem Janem, Israel/France Mad Hot Ballroom, USA La Moustache, France La Nuit de la vérité (The Night of Truth), Burkina Faso La sombra del caminante (The Wandering Shadows), Columbia Tout un hiver sans feu (One Long Winter Without Fire), Switzerland
The competition was very tough indeed. How can anyone not truly enjoy watching kids emulate adult sensuality as they practice ballroom dancing, make funny faces and throw tantrums? Most kids had not yet learned the art of deception, and their real emotions are painfully all over their faces. You feel a bit teary-eyed for the losers and even more so for the winners leaving the theater with a sense of happiness. I would recommend Mad Hot Ballroom to all my family and friends or even a stranger at the theater ticket counter wondering which film to see. On the other hand, the pure suffering of society outcasts would not have such universal appeal but makes no less a terrific film in La sombra del caminante. This movie was filmed in black and white and takes place on the streets of Bogotá where many poor and suffering people try to earn a living. One-legged elderly Mañe cannot find work, and through his evolving friendship with a silletero who carries people on a chair on his back to earn money, we learn how both men have suffered from civil war and the antipathy of strangers. The harsh realities of their situations and cruelties of their country reveal a compelling story of goodness and evil, forgiveness and the unforgivable, which haunts long after you have seen the film. Such outstanding films deserve mention even when they do not win awards. My colleagues’ favorite film varied greatly from the prize winner. Rather than a very serious film about the suffering of a group of impoverished people trying to live off a sinking ship, their choice was a black comedy about a pastor and a criminal each living their beliefs to the extreme. In Adam’s Apples, Neo-Nazi Adam must fulfill his community service duty at a parish where he must care for an old, famous apple tree, and the pastor asks him to bake a pie from the apples. The tree is plagued, which Adam blames on God and the pastor blames on the Devil. Karen Pecota explains this favorite choice: Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen’s film was inspired by the book in the Bible called Job. Jensen’s hilarious accounting of such a tragic real-life story was brilliantly written and performed. It’s totally comic relief with class! This is a must-see film that you will never forget nor tire of because of its creative style and integrity. My favorite of the twelve films was Brudermord, which addresses the plight of two Kurdish brothers who move to Germany to earn money for their family. Semo is a pimp and lives a very fast life with a fancy car and pretty girls. His younger brother Azad has no respect for Semo because he takes money from prostitutes. Azad earns a little as a barber. While looking out for Ibo, an orphan Kurdish boy, Azad angers a Turk. Later at a chance meeting on the street, a confrontation ensues, ending in the death of the Turk and the involvement of the German police. In addition to the current tensions between Kurds and Turks living in Germany, the film also touches on their treatment by the Germans. So many aspects of this film are outstanding. To illustrate a few, the film was more like watching live action than storytelling. The violence was abrupt and shocking, but totally necessary. The emotions were raw, touching me so personally that the fictional characters engendered my pity for Azad and real agony for Ibo. Although all the terrific films at Filmfest Hamburg cannot win awards, Brudermord will definitely win many hearts with the relationship between Azad and Ibo, who choose to be brothers in a foreign land.
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Brudermord (Fratricide), Germany/France
This eclectic collection of films begs the question of how one can compare and contrast them to find just one which best presents an unusual, original view of the present, particularly when one film is set in 1942. Dr. Fingerhut, however, spoke for all four critics when he said that, with little hesitation, their favorite of the twelve films was Iron Island from Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. The exceptional location for most of the action was an old, rusty oil tanker anchored off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf, which served as a provisional home for uprooted families fleeing poverty. On board the crowded ship people lived, loved, died and learned without paying at-tention to the sinking of the ship. The unusual scenery, storytelling, creative screenplay, expressive actors and unforgettable pictures made this film the critics’ choice.