I would never try to presume anyone else’s ignorance, but you may not have heard about The Audi Festival of German Films. This may be because- as festival director Klaus Krischok (also the director of the German cultural institution, Goethe-Institut, in Sydney)- modestly assures me that their objective is not necessarily to “compete with the big festivals.”

Instead, Goethe-Institut and German Films have concentrated on slowly developing the event each year (in 2010, the festival launch in Adelaide for the first time, joining Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney).

In its 9th year, The Audi Festival of German Films will organise each film according to category: according to Krischok, Culinary Comedies will “deal with food and laughter, but at the same time don’t exclude serious matter like multiculturalism… it does away with one of the stereotypes that some people out there might have that Germans a) don’t laugh and b) don’t like food”; German Currents forms “the backbone” and are “exclusively premiers in Australia of 2009 and 2010”; and Berlin Based films will portray the intriguing city as “always sexy and has stories to tell (which are sometimes) a little bit grungy…sometimes mind boggling.”

There are also two categories devoted to acclaimed German directors Sönke Wortmann (Alone amongst women, Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen) and Fatih Akin (Head-On, The Edge of Heaven). Although Akin is unable to return to Australia for a second year, Wortmann will travel to Australia for the festival to promote his new film Pope Joan- which Krischok calls “a wonderful film” (the festival director is also attempting to convince one of the film’ s stars, local actor David Wenham, to attend, but an appearance from the Lord of the Rings actor is uncertain at this point).

Krischok says that this year’s festival will focus on “strong political themes and a few more comedies where food doesn’t play such a big role and some very strong smaller films … which sometimes get neglected with the big biopic Hollywood style films.”

The festival director’s personal favourites Faith and When we leave which both deal with the clash of values between a Muslim society and a racist society. “They both screened at The Berlin Film Festival one in competition, one in panorama and there was a big discussion in Berlin about these two films,” he says.

The two films that I had the chance to see were Whisky with Vodka and The Wolves of Berlin: both were unabashedly truthful and had a sense of warmth and humility. Whisky with Vodka is a heart-warmingly funny film within a film, released in Germany last September.

The opening shot- a close-up of the back of a grey and balding man’s head- may put you off, but neatly sets up the main theme of the movie: age. The new film from Cloud Nine director Andreas Dresen’s follows a master German actor, Otto Kullberg (Henry Hübchen), who is on the set of yet another film. However, with his personal life in shambles, his performance is far from smooth.

After turning up drunk on set- the director, under pressure from the film’s financer, is ordered to hire an understudy theatre actor, Arno (Markus Hering), to film all of Otto’s scenes - not to necessarily replace him- but to pressure Otto to clean up his act. The young and charming actor makes Otto more and more insecure, leaving the veteran questioning his own abilities.

Check out the trailer:

The film, which was mostly shot in a seaside hotel, blurs a more modern and relatable story about self-destruction with a classical, 1920s-style approach, as love scenes are accompanied by smoky, rich jazz sounds. A love triangle established between Otto and a mother and a daughter (an image of the three of them in bed graces the cover of the Festival program), is echoed in a further romance with the director’s wife. In particular, a slapstick sequence- where Otto is attempting to break a wine bottle on a table- is performed with such expert comic timing that the film elicits strong comparisons with the likes of Chaplin and Keaton.

Another brilliant scene involves Otto visiting his elderly father in an intensive care hospital unit. Here- through comic misunderstanding and tragic pathos- the old, dishevelled actor realizes how little he has left in a terrifically darkly comic scene.

Unfortunately, some things do not seem to add up in the film, such as the phrase the director constantly says to anyone who threatens him- “I’m not a bucket to s**t in”- which left me wondering if it was lost in translation or if it is a saying only Germans understand. But, overall, the film was absolutely entertaining and recommended to everyone who wants a good laugh.

There are not many laughs to be had in writer-director Friedemann Fromm’s political epic, The Wolves of Berlin (the festival director calls it “rather German, very profound, altogether a four and a half hour saga… you know we (Germans) love our sagas”). Comprising of three episodes set in post-War Germany, the 2009 miniseries details the guilt-laden world of 1948 (Part I: Nothing Will Ever Divide Us, which was the only film screened), the oppressive political environment of 1961 (Part II: Shattered City) and an ultimate return to dignity and faith for the German people in 1989 (Part III: Hope for Happiness).

Krischok praises the series, and says that television director Fromm’s miniseries “uses the slang, it uses the famous Berlin wit which is sometimes a little crude or a little rude, but it is at the same time totally heart warming and caught the essence not only the city, but of 50 years of German history.”

Winner of the 2009 International Emmy Award for Best TV-Movie/Miniseries, the miniseries has been praised in its native country, with German magazine Der Spiegel calling it "arguably the most penetrating fictional portrait ever of the post-war era, of the fatherless fathers of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Check out the winner's speech here:

Set three years after World War Two, Part I: Nothing Will Ever Divide Us looks at this ideologically-driven, difficult period through the eyes of six German children. Bernd and Kurt, initially the leader of young political groups, seek out the Jewish Jacob as they held onto the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews are rich and assumed he would be able to fund their dream of opening up a bar. After they found a common cause and accepted their differences, they promised to support each other and formed a ‘blood-brother’ gang, “The Wolves.” Each drew blood from their arms and chanted, "Nothing will ever divide us."

Although the Nazis no longer held power over Germany, there were still obvious remnants of German nationalism and anti-Semitism, such as many among the youth who were very much a part of The Hitler Youth. A group of thugs took to the domain of Berlin and threatened the Wolves and others with their extreme ‘rules’, with harsh consequences for those who disobeyed.

At a time when Germany was forced to pay reparations for its damages caused to the Allies and its citizens, each of the story’s characters are struggling to survive in their difficult circumstances: Bernd was left alone with his mother, Jakob- scarred from the horrors of the Concentration camps- lost all of his family and Lotte- in desperate times- still dreams of a singing career. The tensest scene features the children discovering a missile and attempting to stabilise it, showing that Germany was still a war zone.

Although the accuracy of the set and costume helped make the historical footage woven into the film barely distinguishable from the rest of the story, the film wasn’t entirely impressive, possibly because it is a miniseries made for television- not the big screen. Although it clearly was not my favourite of the two films previewed, I am -still eager to see the characters as they develop in the next two parts of the story.

The Audi Festival of German Films will screen in Melbourne from 22nd of April to the 2nd of May at Palace Cinema Como and Kino Cinemas. For more information, visit the Festival’s website: http://www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/prj/fia/ffg/enindex.htm

Gabriele Oberman