Hessian Film Highlights
The anticipation rises, only about two weeks until the opening of the LICHTER Film Festival 2018. That is reason enough to give you a closer look to this year’s programme. For the eleventh edition we have not only packed a few highlights of our international "Chaos" program filmmakers, but also many great Hessian films for you.
The Regional Competition
The feature films and documentaries in the regional long- and short film programme once again bring the great variety in Hessian filmmakers to the screen. Festival director Gregor Maria Schubert states: “The entries for the competition around the ‘Weißer Bembel’ have shown how strong the year of film 2018 is.”
Dieter Reifarth’s essayistic documentary Die Tortur premieres in Germany at LICHTER and talks of the experiences of torture the writer Jean Améry went through as a prisoner of National Socialism in the Belgian Fort Breendonk. Director David Sieveking from Friedberg takes on a topic that inspires passion in Germany: vaccinations. Should or shouldn’t one? Whoever feels the need to have this question answered: we recommend watching Eingeimpft on the 7th of April at 16:00 o’clock.
Ink of Yam is the graduation film of Tom Fröhlich from the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt and was awarded the Best Graduation Film at the Hessian Film-and Cinema Awards 2017. The director visited a tattoo studio in Jerusalem, in which the Middle-East conflict seems non-existent. Both works enter the LICHTER Film Festival as Hessian premieres.
Especially documentaries need not fear comparison all over Germany this year. This is proven especially by the homage to the Cinema Concetta, Wunder der Wirklichkeit (Director: Thomas Frickel) that we are screening on Saturday, the 7th of April at 18 o’clock at the Zoo-Gesellschaftshaus. Numerous productions were made with contributions from filmmakers and sponsors from Hessen and the Rhine-Main region.
The regional short films as well promise to be a great Highlight. The Short Film Series I and II assemble the Cream of the Crop of what the local up-and-coming film scene has to offer – a short lived pleasure extraordinaire.
Rosa von Praunheim however is considered an institution of German filmmaking. His documentary Männerfreundschaften completes the competition for the best regional longfilm. The film on the passionate correspondence between poets of the Weimar Classicism celebrates its international premiere on Wednesday the 4th of April at the Zoo-Gesellschaftshaus. In total, nine longfilms and 27 short films from Hesse and the Rhine-Main region compete for the infamous Weißer Bembel.