Finally, a movie that has the courage to ask: “Was it okay to be horny during the Holocaust?” While Nikolaus Leytner’s “The Tobacconist” poses several other provocative questions along the way, this stiff and milquetoast coming-of-age drama — — fails to ask any of them with the same clarity, and probably would have fared much better had it stuck to the subject at hand rather than try and leverage it toward some kind of deeper meaning. Of course, certain traps are hard to avoid when you’re adapting a Robert Seethaler novel about an über-hormonal Austrian teenager who finds himself getting romantic advice from Sigmund Freud (played by the late Bruno Ganz in the last of the actor’s films to be released in America).
A country boy with Aryan features who grew up on the green shores of Austria’s bucolic lake Attersee, Franz (a strapping but somewhat blank Simon Morzé...
A country boy with Aryan features who grew up on the green shores of Austria’s bucolic lake Attersee, Franz (a strapping but somewhat blank Simon Morzé...
- 7/10/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A cigar is never just a cigar where Sigmund Freud is concerned. The father of psychoanalysis serves as a supporting character in “The Tobacconist” — and none other than the great Bruno Ganz embodies the iconic smoker, making this one of the German actor’s last (and least bombastic) performances.
Ganz, whom many will recognize from his role as Adolf Hitler in “Downfall,” now plays one of the Führer’s many victims, a Jewish-born atheist forced to flee his comfortable Viennese home during the Anschluss of 1938, when Germany annexed Austria and occupied its capital, meeting with enthusiastic support from National Socialists and anti-Semites who agreed with his policies. This was an undeniably shameful time in Austria’s history, seen through the eyes of a naive young gentile who’s more concerned with falling in love and losing his virginity than with the rise of fascism, at least in TV director Nikolaus Leytner’s somewhat treacly telling.
Ganz, whom many will recognize from his role as Adolf Hitler in “Downfall,” now plays one of the Führer’s many victims, a Jewish-born atheist forced to flee his comfortable Viennese home during the Anschluss of 1938, when Germany annexed Austria and occupied its capital, meeting with enthusiastic support from National Socialists and anti-Semites who agreed with his policies. This was an undeniably shameful time in Austria’s history, seen through the eyes of a naive young gentile who’s more concerned with falling in love and losing his virginity than with the rise of fascism, at least in TV director Nikolaus Leytner’s somewhat treacly telling.
- 7/10/2020
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Sigmund Freud wrote about a great many things in his lifetime but ask the average person about him and the first thing they'll mention will be his work on sex. Set in the mid-1930s, just before the Anschluss, Nikolaus Leytner's film, which captures him almost in passing, is a reminder that for part of his life at least he had far more urgent concerns. It's told from the perspective of young Franz (Simon Morzé), who, still in his teens, has an excuse for having little besides sex on his mind, and who is delighted to have access to the man he considers to be the world's foremost expert to help him figure it out - but in time he will come to realise that there's much more going on around him.
It's a tobacconist's job to know all his customers well, says Herr Tsrnjek (Johannes Krisch), the man to whom.
It's a tobacconist's job to know all his customers well, says Herr Tsrnjek (Johannes Krisch), the man to whom.
- 7/7/2020
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Tobacconist (Der trafikant) Menemsha Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Nickolaus Leytner Screenwriters: Klaus Richter, Nikolaus Leytner, based on Robert Seethaler’s novel Cast: Simon Morzé, Bruno Ganz, Johannes Krisch, Emma Drogunova Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/29/20 Opens: July10, 2020 “Sometimes a cigar is just a […]
The post The Tobacconist Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Tobacconist Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 7/2/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Bavaria Filmproduktion, whose latest film, Oskar Roehler’s “Enfant Terrible,” is part of Cannes’ Official Selection this year, is next producing projects from acclaimed filmmaker Hans Steinbichler (“The Diary of Anne Frank”) and writer-director duo Felix Fuchssteiner and Katharina Schöde, makers of the hugely popular “Ruby Red” fantasy-adventure trilogy.
Steinbichler is directing an adaptation of writer-actor Robert Seethaler’s bestseller “A Whole Life,” which spans a solitary man’s life in a remote Alpine valley. Bavaria Filmproduktion, the feature film unit of German entertainment giant Bavaria Film, is partnering on the project with Vienna-based Epo-Film, co-producer of Sky Deutschland’s murder-mystery series “Pagan Peak.”
“A Whole Life” reunites Steinbichler and Seethaler, who wrote the screenplay for the filmmaker’s 2008 drama “My Mother, My Bride and I.”
Seethaler’s works also include “The Tobacconist,” which served as the basis of Nikolaus Leytner’s 2018 release starring the late Bruno Ganz.
Bavaria Filmproduktion...
Steinbichler is directing an adaptation of writer-actor Robert Seethaler’s bestseller “A Whole Life,” which spans a solitary man’s life in a remote Alpine valley. Bavaria Filmproduktion, the feature film unit of German entertainment giant Bavaria Film, is partnering on the project with Vienna-based Epo-Film, co-producer of Sky Deutschland’s murder-mystery series “Pagan Peak.”
“A Whole Life” reunites Steinbichler and Seethaler, who wrote the screenplay for the filmmaker’s 2008 drama “My Mother, My Bride and I.”
Seethaler’s works also include “The Tobacconist,” which served as the basis of Nikolaus Leytner’s 2018 release starring the late Bruno Ganz.
Bavaria Filmproduktion...
- 6/19/2020
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Drama played Edinburgh last summer, stars Bruno Ganz (Downfall) in penultimate role.
Kino Lorber has partnered with Menemsha Films on the virtual theatrical release of Nikolaus Leytner’s Austrian coming-of-age drama The Tobacconist starring the late Bruno Ganz.
The film will launch on Kino Marquee on July 10 and will also open in theatrical engagements as cinemas open in key markets across the Us over the coming months.
The release marks Kino Lorber’s latest virtual cinema collaboration with other distributors after it worked with Well Go USA on House Of Hummingbird, which debuts on June 26, and Good Deed Entertainment on Extra Ordinary and Lucky Grandma.
Kino Lorber has partnered with Menemsha Films on the virtual theatrical release of Nikolaus Leytner’s Austrian coming-of-age drama The Tobacconist starring the late Bruno Ganz.
The film will launch on Kino Marquee on July 10 and will also open in theatrical engagements as cinemas open in key markets across the Us over the coming months.
The release marks Kino Lorber’s latest virtual cinema collaboration with other distributors after it worked with Well Go USA on House Of Hummingbird, which debuts on June 26, and Good Deed Entertainment on Extra Ordinary and Lucky Grandma.
- 6/17/2020
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare tale All Is True has been selected to open the Palm Springs Film Festival, which Friday unveiled its full lineup of films for the 30th edition that runs January 3-14. The fest also said that Bruce Bereford’s Ladies in Black will be the closing-night film, with the director and cast members expected to be in attendance.
In all, the fest will screen 223 films from 78 countries, and as usual will screen a slew of Oscar Foreign Language Film entries, this year numbering 43 of the 87 official submissions. Also on the docket: a 30-film retrospective of past fest selections, dubbed the Palm Springs Canon; special focuses on cinema from France, India and Mexico, and Jewish and queer cinema; and the new Ricky Jay Magic of Cinema Award, named for actor and magician Ricky Jay who died last month.
In addition to the film lineup, the opening awards gala...
In all, the fest will screen 223 films from 78 countries, and as usual will screen a slew of Oscar Foreign Language Film entries, this year numbering 43 of the 87 official submissions. Also on the docket: a 30-film retrospective of past fest selections, dubbed the Palm Springs Canon; special focuses on cinema from France, India and Mexico, and Jewish and queer cinema; and the new Ricky Jay Magic of Cinema Award, named for actor and magician Ricky Jay who died last month.
In addition to the film lineup, the opening awards gala...
- 12/14/2018
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced its 2019 lineup, and it’s prodigious: 223 films from 78 countries, four of them world premieres. Though well known for celebrating future Oscar nominees (and winners) each year, the festival also boasts a deceptively robust world-cinema slate; among the upcoming offerings are Jia Zhangke’s “Ash Is Purest White,” Sergey Loznitsa’s “Donbass,” Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s “Birds of Passage,” and Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Asako I & II,” to name just a few.
A number of post-screening Q&As will also be held, including with “Black Klansman” author Ron Stallworth and “Support the Girls” star Regina Hall, in addition to a new section celebrating the best films to screen at Psiff throughout its first three decades.
World premieres:
Buck Run (USA), Director Nick Frangione
Carlos Almaraz Playing With Fire (USA), Directors Elsa Flores Almaraz, Richard Montoya (Schlesinger Documentary Competition)
The Last Color...
A number of post-screening Q&As will also be held, including with “Black Klansman” author Ron Stallworth and “Support the Girls” star Regina Hall, in addition to a new section celebrating the best films to screen at Psiff throughout its first three decades.
World premieres:
Buck Run (USA), Director Nick Frangione
Carlos Almaraz Playing With Fire (USA), Directors Elsa Flores Almaraz, Richard Montoya (Schlesinger Documentary Competition)
The Last Color...
- 12/14/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Germany’s leading sales companies have descended on the American Film Market with a wide range of titles that span horror and historical fare to arthouse, animation and family pics.
Supernatural thrillers look to be especially prevalent this year, with such chilling titles as “The Sonata,” “Hanna’s Homecoming” and “Party Hard, Die Young” — all from Arri Media Intl.
Directed by Andrew Desmond and starring Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian and Rutger Hauer, “The Sonata” follows a young violinist who inadvertently triggers dark forces after discovering a mysterious music score composed by her late father. The film world premiered at Afm.
Esther Bialas’ “Hanna’s Homecoming,” likewise having its market premiere, centers on a teen girl who is shunned in her village because her mother was widely believed to be a witch and responsible for the deaths of several men. The pic premiered in October at the Hof Film Festival.
Also...
Supernatural thrillers look to be especially prevalent this year, with such chilling titles as “The Sonata,” “Hanna’s Homecoming” and “Party Hard, Die Young” — all from Arri Media Intl.
Directed by Andrew Desmond and starring Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian and Rutger Hauer, “The Sonata” follows a young violinist who inadvertently triggers dark forces after discovering a mysterious music score composed by her late father. The film world premiered at Afm.
Esther Bialas’ “Hanna’s Homecoming,” likewise having its market premiere, centers on a teen girl who is shunned in her village because her mother was widely believed to be a witch and responsible for the deaths of several men. The pic premiered in October at the Hof Film Festival.
Also...
- 11/3/2018
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Historical romance, literary adaptations, arthouse drama, star-studded comedies, children’s pics, animated fare and a high-profile documentary are among the many German films and co-productions on offer at this year’s Cannes Film Market.
Unspooling as part of the festival are Wim Wenders’ “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word,” repped by Focus Features and bowing in Special Screenings; “In My Room,” Ulrich Koehler’s story of a man who suddenly realizes everyone around him has disappeared, which world premieres in Un Certain Regard; and, in Intl. Critics’ Week sidebar, Anja Kofmel’s Swiss co-production “Chris the Swiss,” a partially animated documentary from Urban Distribution that investigates the mysterious death of a young Swiss journalist during the Yugoslav wars.
On the market side, one historical niche that is proving particularly successful is that of the turn-of-the-century artist.
Picture Tree Intl. is following its 2016 hit “Egon Schiele — Death and the Maiden,...
Unspooling as part of the festival are Wim Wenders’ “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word,” repped by Focus Features and bowing in Special Screenings; “In My Room,” Ulrich Koehler’s story of a man who suddenly realizes everyone around him has disappeared, which world premieres in Un Certain Regard; and, in Intl. Critics’ Week sidebar, Anja Kofmel’s Swiss co-production “Chris the Swiss,” a partially animated documentary from Urban Distribution that investigates the mysterious death of a young Swiss journalist during the Yugoslav wars.
On the market side, one historical niche that is proving particularly successful is that of the turn-of-the-century artist.
Picture Tree Intl. is following its 2016 hit “Egon Schiele — Death and the Maiden,...
- 5/12/2018
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Cologne, Germany -- History repeated itself in several ways at this year's German TV Awards, held Saturday night in Cologne. Public broadcasters ZDF and ARD once again swept the honors, taking 16 of 21 trophies, and all the main winners were historic dramas looking at Germany's recent past.
ZDF's "Die Wolfe" (The Wolves), a docu-drama set in the 1940s, won three TV awards, helping the channel to a final tally of 10, far ahead of all competitors.
But it was ARD's "Mogadischu," a "Flight 93"-style drama tracking the infamous 1977 terrorist hijacking of a Lufthansa flight, that scooped the evening's top prize as best TV movie. Produced by Berlin-based teamWorx, the movie stars Thomas Kretschmann, Nadja Uhl and Said Taghmaoui.
For a change, the top winner was also a ratings hit. Roland Suso Richter's drama scored a 21% share in its first airing last November, with 7.3 million Germans tuning in.
Along with ARD and ZDF,...
ZDF's "Die Wolfe" (The Wolves), a docu-drama set in the 1940s, won three TV awards, helping the channel to a final tally of 10, far ahead of all competitors.
But it was ARD's "Mogadischu," a "Flight 93"-style drama tracking the infamous 1977 terrorist hijacking of a Lufthansa flight, that scooped the evening's top prize as best TV movie. Produced by Berlin-based teamWorx, the movie stars Thomas Kretschmann, Nadja Uhl and Said Taghmaoui.
For a change, the top winner was also a ratings hit. Roland Suso Richter's drama scored a 21% share in its first airing last November, with 7.3 million Germans tuning in.
Along with ARD and ZDF,...
- 9/27/2009
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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