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Dying film image; people at a table in a restaurant

Dying

Sterben

Showcase

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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

Director
Cast

Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Anna Bederke

Credits
Country of Origin

Germany

Year

2024

Language

In German with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At International Village

19+

At Fifth Avenue

180 min
Art, Music & Photography Award Winners Drama Family Relations
Port au Prince Film & Kultur Produktion GmbH, Schwarzweiss Filmproduktion GmbH, Senator Film Produktion GmbH, ZDF

Book Tickets

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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 headshot; Dying director

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)

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