This year鈥檚, taking place in May and June,聽promises some stellar events.聽
A must鈥搒ee is Mack the Knife 鈥 Brecht's Threepenny Film (Mackie Messer 鈥 Brechts Dreigrosschenfilm) about Bertolt Brecht鈥檚 1930s struggle to make a movie based on his successful stage play.聽The story of the murderous Mack the Knife and the London underworld weaves in with German capitalism and Brecht鈥檚 insistent revolutionary politics.
This is matched by the 1931 version of The 3 Penny Opera!. This 鈥渙riginal cinematic interpretation鈥 promises 鈥減alpable evocation of corruption and dread, set to composer Kurt Weill's irresistible score鈥.聽
There are a number of films examining the experience of life in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany).聽Among them is a bio鈥損ic about Gerhard Gundermann, the East German coal miner who rose to prominence as a dissident rock singer.聽It will be interesting to see how contemporary Germany is able to make sense of his socialist politics that survived the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.
[The German Film Festival program can be seen .]