German Cinema 2016

For the past couple of years, German Cinema has been one of our most anticipated annual festivals. We first found out about the festival in 2013 when we ‘accidently’ stumbled across it when we were buying tickets for a movie in Blitzmegaplex Paris Van Java. We completely missed the festival in 2014, but last year we managed to see 6 out of the 9 movies they screened. This year, German Cinema 2016 brought 9 more movies for us to watch, free of charge. I watched 6 of them and Afief watched 7.

Just like last year, the festival was also held for 3 days in Ciwalk XXI. The ticket box was opened about an hour before each film started. It gets more and more crowded each year. I think it might be good if they found another venue for next year; with bigger theater and more seats, perhaps?


The six movies I watched were:

• Herbert
• Victoria
• Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer
• Verfehlung
• Lenalove
• Wild

But among them, my favourites are Victoria and Lenalove.

Victoria (2015) tells a story about a young Spanish woman who has just come to Berlin three months ago. She works a low paying job and barely speaks German. She meets a bunch of guys outside a club. They seem nice and one of them flirts heavily with her and she decides to hang out with them before she has to work the following morning. What starts as a fun early morning ends with  a gunfight and blood.
Lenalove is a story of broken friendship, bullying, social media, and how adults’ problem affects their children. Lena and Nicole are neighbours and used to be BFFs. Now Nicole hangs out with Stella, a typical teenaged bully, and Lena finds a new friend, Noah, through her social media. Lena confides in Noah about a lot of personal things, not realising who Noah really is.

This festival kind of makes me wish there were more countries willing to create this kind of festival. There are a few film festivals currently being held by CGV, namely the Koreans and Japanese ones, but they are merely festivals held by CGV and not directly supported by the countries’ government.

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