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
The Plague
At a water polo camp, Ben is plunged into the deep end of toxic peer pressure. Terrified of incurring his campmates’ wrath, he joins them in tormenting a kid whose skin rash has been branded “the plague”. But then he experiences a breakout of his own...
Saturn Return
This fascinating, highly acclaimed movie is a thinly disguised history of 90s indie rockers Los Planetas, a Granada grunge outfit who cited the Velvet Underground as inspiration. It's one of the best rock movies in years.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
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)