Focus on Andres Veiel - London talks and screenings

Every year the Goethe-Insitut presents a special focus as part of the Festival of German Films. This year’s Goethe-Focus will be dedicated to the director Andres Veiel. From Maren Hobein:

Best known in the UK for Black Box Germany, his film about a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang and one of their victims, Andres Veiel is one of Germany's most important documentary filmmakers. Critically acclaimed, widely watched and always much discussed, Veiel’s six films to date have substantially contributed to the growing popularity of the documentary genre in Germany.

Andres Veiel will be in London to attend the film screenings on 29 and 30 November. Following the screening of Addicted to Acting on Saturday 29 November he will talk with Edward Kemp, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) On Sunday 30 November he will again be at the Curzon for a discussion after Black Box Germany, organised in collaboration with the moving-image training organisation InSight.

Monday 24 November, 7pm, Goethe-Institut London
A WINTER NIGHT'S DREAM
Inka Köhler-Rechnitz was offered a theatre engagement in Görlitz after graduating from acting school in the 1920s, but her husband would not let her pursue her career. Sixty years later, after fearing for her life as a half-Jew during the Nazi years and bringing up her children, she can finally appear on stage. A film about holding on to your dreams and refusing to let age get in the way.

Tuesday 25 November, 7pm, Goethe-Institut London
BALAGAN
An Orthodox Jew, the daughter of a concentration camp survivor and a Palestinian actor develop a play exploring modern-day perceptions of the Holocaust in Israel. The project pushes all three actors to their physical and psychological limits. The film recounts this difficult experiment that portrays the painful contradictions of Israeli society. The fact that a German director tackled this painful subject was a cause of much controversy in Israel.

Wednesday 26 November, 7pm, Goethe-Institut London
THE SURVIVORS
When Veiel's classmates, who graduated in 1979, gather for a reunion, three of their classmates are missing. They have all committed suicide. Through research and talking to those who 'survived' them, Veiel pieces together their lives, without trying to give any definite explanations for their deaths. The result is a deeply compelling portrait of a generation.

Saturday 29 November, 1pm, Goethe-Institut London
THE KICK
In July 2002 three youths, two of them brothers, tortured and killed one of their peers. After detailed research Veiel wrote and staged a play which investigates the reasons for, and reactions to, this crime. Though not identical with the stage production, the film sticks to its formal device of having only two actors play all the different people involved. It is a distancing strategy which directs all our attention to the words and nuances of the various testimonies.

Saturday 29 November, 3:45pm, Curzon Soho
ADDICTED TO ACTING
What if acting and becoming an actor is all that matters to you? The four protagonists of this film are driven by this passion. Andres Veiel followed them for seven years, from the time they applied to the famous Ernst Busch drama school in Berlin through to their first engagements. We are taken on a true rollercoaster of emotions. Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2003.

Sunday 30 November, 1pm, Curzon Soho
BLACK BOX GERMANY
In 1989 Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank, was killed in a bomb attack presumably carried out by members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Four years later, the suspected terrorist Wolfgang Grams died from bullet injuries while being arrested at a train station. Veiel juxtaposes their contrary biographies, which represent deeply engrained oppositions within post-war German society. A film about complex individuals, trapped by their function in society.