North American Premiere
With death looming for both elders of the Lunies clan, their estranged children are forced to meet once more, while dealing with their own tumultuous dramas. Tom (Lars Eidinger), a conductor in his early forties, is working on a composition called “Dying,” while also acting as the surrogate father of his ex-girlfriend’s child. Meanwhile, his sister Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg) begins a destructive affair with a married man. As their lives converge, age-old enmities rise to the surface.
In this epic, three-hour saga by German director Matthias Glasner, Tolstoy’s maxim that “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” gets further confirmation. Divided into discrete chapters, the film is a tense drama of impressive scale and ambition. By turns morbid, darkly comic, and unexpectedly invigorating, it is a film about the inescapable vicissitudes of family: those people we can’t seem to live with, but also can’t seem to do without.
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay, Berlin 2024
Managers to be exceedingly funny, often in some of its darkest moments, as well as expectedly sad.
Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter
Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Anna Bederke
Germany
2024
In German with English subtitles
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Jan Krüger, Ulf Israel, Matthias Glasner
Screenwriter
Matthias Glasner
Cinematography
Jakub Bejnarowicz
Editor
Heike Gnida
Production Design
Tamo Kunz
Original Music
Lorenz Dangel
Matthias Glasner
Matthias Glasner was born in Hamburg in 1965. In the 90s, he made the hipster trilogy Die Mediocren (1995), Sexy Sadie (1996), and Fandango (2000), all of which premiered at the Berlinale. This was followed by the films Der Freie Wille (2006), This is Love (2009), and Gnade (2011). Glasner has directed several television series including KDD – Kriminaldauerdienst (Grimme Prize and German Television Prize), Blochin – Die Lebenden und die Toten, Landgericht (Grimme Prize), and season two of Das Boot.
Filmography: Die Mediocren (1995); Sexy Sadie (1996); Fandango (2000); Der Freie Wille (2006); This is Love (2009); Gnade (2011)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Pocket Mirror
Lonely, isolated, and haunted by the possibility her cat has been replaced with a replica, Maisie’s closest confidant is an AI chatbot. Pocket Mirror is a striking distillation of modern alienation with wry humour and underlying suspense.
Light Pillar
Xu Zao’s mellow, melancholy film follows a bottom-tier employee at a decaying film studio as he gets pulled into an online obsession. Mixing animation with live action, this is a whimsical satire and a lament for the pre-digital world.
Short Forum 4: Immanence: A Life
You don’t have to look far; life is beautiful!
A Fire There
Winner of the Special Jury Award at Visions du Réel, A Fire There follows three teenage friends in rural Georgia as adulthood arrives. Marlene Edoyan’s finely observed film redefines coming of age as something slower and more quietly rebellious.
Image: © Nemesis Films F3M
Clubfoot
An adopted teen and his friend coerce a younger adoptee to go for a drive out to the countryside — but things turn violent. With a fragmented structure and unresolved questions, Clubfoot reflects the uncertainty and isolation that often follow adoption.