40 Jahre Internationale Hofer Filmtage

1967 - 1969
1971 - 1976
1977 - 1984
1985 - 1991
>> 1992 - 1999
2000 - 2004

The Scala, a festival venue since 1999

In 1992, the film festival football team won a 4:2 victory and respect was gained for the German film with Ralf Huettner’s DER PAPAGEI (‘The parrot’), in which Harald Juhnke played an eloquent Micawber roped into services for a right wing party, with Niklaus Schilling’s DEUTSCHFIEBER (‘German fever’), Helke Misselwitz’s HERZSPRUNG (‘Crack in the heart’) which showed how the reunited Germans dealt with a foreigner, and with VERLORENE LANDSCHAFT (LOST LANDSCAPE), Andreas Kleinert’s description of a model – and hence very difficult – (East-)German childhood. So much for German films not participating in what life’s all about.

At the premiere of DER PAPAGEI: (from left to right) director Ralf Huettner with actors Harald Junke, Dominic Raacke, Dietmar Mössmer.

In 1993, the promising director Tom Tykwer hit the scene: his feature debut DIE TÖDLICHE MARIA (DEADLY MARIA) impressed audiences as a wilfully composed and taciturn, intimate play. But that was about it. ‘The new German film’, one critic snubbed, ‘disappoints through and through.’

1994 wasn’t any better. Films by Tim Burton (BATMAN) and Australian splatter-fan Peter Jackson – in the meantime world-famous through LORD OF THE RINGS – were showcased. 1995: Graf and Rödl made television thrillers, Schlingensief and Praunheim flipped the audience a bird – Germany remained, as one newspaper wrote, ‘an underdeveloped cinematic trouble zone.’

No wonder, then, that everyone recollected on yesteryear’s successes. In 1996, Bernd Eichinger showed up with two ‘German Classics’: one – DAS MÄDCHEN ROSEMARIE (A GIRL CALLED ROSEMARIE) – he directed himself, the other one – DIE HALBSTARKEN (‘Yobs’) – he ‘merely’ produced. More important than the remakes was GEFÄHRLICHE FREUNDIN (‘A dangerous woman friend’), a female film noir by Hermine Huntgeburth. But it didn’t escape notice that, although Germany might not have any great directors, it certainly did have great actors – ‘faces to rely on.’

In 1997 Schlingensief showed, under the title DIE 120 TAGE VON BOTTROP (‘120 days of Bottrop’), the last ‘New German Film’: an eerie Punch and Judy show. But there was also – really new and really good – WINTERSCHLÄFER (WINTERSLEEPERS) from Tykwer. The international programme enthused with LIVE FLESH by Almodóvar and THE FULL MONTY by Peter Cattaneo from Great Britain. The following year, again nothing very exciting from Germany. But 1999, when Doris Dörrie returned to Hof with ERLEUCHTUNG GARANTIERT (ENLIGHTENMENT GUARANTEED), turned into a year of ‘small enlightenments’: TUVALU and NACHTTANKE (‘Nighttime at a petrolstation’), FREMDE FREUNDIN (UNKNOWN FRIEND) and the macabre comedy DREI CHINESEN MIT DEM KONTRABASS (THREE CHINAMEN WITH A DOUBLE-BASS).


index	(Hi)story	A little (his)story of the Hof International Film Festival 1992 - 1999