North American Premiere
After his family is deported, Cioma Schönhaus, a young Jewish man living in 1942 Germany, ekes out a living at a munitions factory and enjoys Berlin’s nightlife under a fake naval officer ID. He puts his skills as a graphic artist to use for a former Nazi bureaucrat, forging passports and IDs to help Jewish people escape the country. Adapting the story from Schönhaus’ memoir, director Maggie Peren gives her film the same immaculate attention to detail as Cioma does his forgeries, contrasting the dimly lit Berlin of Jewish people struggling with food rations with the decadence of the Nazis.
Cioma (played with winsome charm by Louis Hofmann) waltzes through the city with reckless abandon, impersonating military personnel to dance with women at bars, and endeavouring to live life to its fullest instead of hiding. The film balances the playful atmosphere of his ingenuity and aplomb against the sombre backdrop of Nazi Germany and the looming danger Cioma faces with each forgery and elegant lie.
Media Partner
Louis Hofmann, Jonathan Berlin, Luna Wedler, Nina Gummich, Marc Limpach, André Jung
Germany/Luxembourg
2022
In German with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Train Dreams
A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.
The Colour of Pomegranates + The House Is Black
This month's Pantheon screening is a double-bill, Sergei Parajanov's extraordinary evocation of the life and work of C18th Armenian poet Sayat Nova, and, The House is Black (22 min), the only film directed by the great Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
Köln 75
The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.
Left-Handed Girl
Co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Anora), Shi-Ching Tsou's heartwarming solo feature debut follows a single mom in Taipei who is too consumed with her noodle stand to keep tabs on her five-year-old daughter's burgeoning shoplifting habit.
Credits
Producer
Alexander Fritzemeyer, Martin Kosok
Screenwriter
Maggie Peren
Cinematography
Christian Stangassinger
Editor
Robert Sterna
Production Design
Eva-Maria Stiebler
Original Music
Mario Grigorov
Director
Maggie Peren
Maggie Peren is an award-winning writer and director born in Heidelberg, Germany. After studying literature and psychology in Munich, she wrote her first screenplay Forget America (2000). In 2003, she received the German Film Award for Before the Fall (2004), followed by numerous screenplays for which she won national and international awards. In 2011, she presented her second directorial work, The Color of the Ocean. The refugee drama premiered in Toronto and was awarded several prizes worldwide. Her thriller short film Nocebo (2014) won the Student Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
Filmography: Stellungswechsel (2007); The Color of the Ocean (2011); Hello Again – A Wedding a Day (2020)
