Overview
Already this year, Aussie movie lovers have been able to journey to France from their cinema seats. Hitting up Spain just by heading to your local picture palace has also been on the itinerary. Your next stop: Germany. Kicking off just as the weather gets colder to remind you of frosty European climes, Australia's touring German Film Festival is back for 2022 with a 26-movie program.
The fest's destinations: Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Byron Bay, spanning different dates between Tuesday, May 24–Wednesday, June 22. Wherever you reside, you'll be able to see in winter with quite the lineup of new and classic German movies.
There's typically a couple of clear recurring themes in this annual cinema showcase, as there tends to be in German films in general. So, the fact that this year's GFF will open with A Stasi Comedy, about life a Stasi agent's double life as both an underground poet and a spy in 80s-era East Berlin, is hardly surprising. Nor are two of the fest's other big-name titles: The Last Execution, starring Babylon Berlin's Lars Eidinger and also set in East Berlin in the 80s; and The Forger, led by Dark's Louis Hofmann, who plays a young Jewish man in Berlin in 1942.
They're just some of the 21 movies that'll enjoy their Australian premieres at the event — alongside drama My Son, about a teenager's relationship with his mother; crime comedy The Black Square, starring Toni Erdmann's Sandra Hüller; the post-WWII-set The German Lesson, which leaps from the page to the screen; and political thriller The House, which takes place in the near future.
GFF is also showcasing new films from just beyond German's borders in Austria and Switzerland. So, you can check out films such as downhill skiing drama Chasing the Line, an Austrian biopic about Winter Olympian Franz Klammer — and Swiss effort Caged Birds, about a lawyer in the 80s battling the prison system.
The festival's final five titles hail from its impressive retrospective for 2022, which takes a look back at German cinema over the past five decades. Cannes Palm d'Or-winner The Tin Drum gets the 70s slot, while the East German-set Sunny Side represents the 80s. Doing the honours for the 90s is the exceptional Run Lola Run, aka one of the best thrillers ever made. The movie that helped push The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's Daniel Brühl to stardom, Good Bye Lenin!, has the 00s covered, and kinetic one-take gem Victoria returns to the big screen to showcase cinema from the past decade.
GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL 2022 DATES:
- May 24–June 19: Palace Norton Street, Chauvel Cinema and Palace Central, Sydney
- May 25–June 19: Palace Electric, Canberra
- May 25–June 19: Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, The Kino, Pentridge Cinema and The Astor Theatre, Melbourne
- June 1–22: Palace Barracks and Palace James Street, Brisbane
- June 2–22:Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas and Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas, Adelaide
- June 2–22: Palace Raine Square Cinemas, Luna Leederville and Luna on SX, Perth
- June 3–19: Palace Byron Bay, Byron Bay
The German Film Festival Australia tours the country from May 24–June 22. For more information, visit the festival website.