Afire (2023)
Director: Christian Petzold Run Time: 102 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Starring: Enno Trebs, Langston Uibel, Matthias Brandt, Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert
Country: Germany
Language: German
About the film:
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner, 2023 Berlin Film Festival
A seaside vacation takes an unexpected turn when Leon and Felix show up at Felix’s family’s holiday home – Leon to work on his second book, Felix to assemble his art portfolio – only to discover Nadja, a mysterious woman, already there. As an ever encroaching forest fire threatens their well-being, relationships are tested, romances are kindled, and Leon’s unfinished manuscript haunts him wherever he goes.
“it’s the film’s great, disorienting structural risks, its humoring of human untidiness and confusion, that make it so subtly thrilling and moving.”
—Guy Lodge, Variety
About the filmmaker:
Christian Petzold is a German film director. He studied at Freie Universität Berlin and then, from 1988 to 1994, film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), where he directed his first films. Made in 2000, his first feature film The State I Am In was presented at the Venice Film Festival and won Gold at the German Film Awards. He also presented his feature Jerichow in Venice. A regular at the Berlin Film Festival, Petzold’s film Barbara (2012) earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director and was selected as the German entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th Academy Awards. His fifth film to be selected at Berlin, Undine, won the FIPRESCI Prize in 2020, and Afire won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in 2023. Other acclaimed features include Gespenster (2005), Yella (2007), Phoenix (2014), and Transit (2018).
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