Truth and Lies
Simon Popek
Programme director
In Robert Schwentke’s The Captain, a frightened yet resourceful deserter assumes the identity of an officer during the last days of WWII, thus turning the film into a grotesque Nazi variety show. The cinematic medium loves doppelgänger motifs, a character’s capability of mimicry, distortion and pretence, double-dealing and manipulation. In adopting this leitmotif, German cinema has a crucial historical role ever since the 1920’s Caligarism. Today’s most prominent representative of this doctrine is Christian Petzold, whose films screened at Liffe within the context of the Berlin Film School retrospective eight years ago. Replicating his inclination to portray characters assuming, consciously or unconsciously, other people’s identities (e.g. Phoenix), Petzold’s films – intelligent, complexly plotted and invariably ambiguous gems that recreate classical films – tend to adopt identities of other films. Yella (2007), a film that propelled him into the cinematic big league, is an elegant remake of a B-movie classic, Carnival of Souls (1962), and Jerichow (2008) reimagines Cain’s film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934). While based on the eponymous novel by Anne Seghers, Petzold’s latest film, Transit, actually paraphrases Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942), whose storyline is – accidentally or not – set in the
same year.
Liffe will devote a great deal of attention to ‘truth and lies’ this year, partly on account of Petzold and partly because of a theme retrospective that will pay tribute to the said manipulative doubles. The subject was also examined by Orson Welles, whose Truth and Lies (1974) was until recently considered to be the director’s last finished film. The famed Netflix will correct this misconception. In 2018, The Other Side of the Wind – an unedited rough cut shelved in a Paris vault – is finally approaching completion. True, nothing is as it seems.
News
- 17 Nov 2018 ι 29th Liffe Awards Ceremony >>
- 16 Nov 2018 ι Screenings of 29th LIFFe Award-winning Films
Monday, 19 November, at 18.00 and 20.00
18.00: Dragon Audience Award
20.00: Kingfisher Award
Kosovel Hall, €6.20, 5.80*
* younger than 25, older than 65 and pensioners
- 9 Nov 2018 ι Additional screening of My Last Year as a Loser on Saturday, 17 Nov, at 11:00 in Kosovel Hall
- 8 Nov 2018 ι 29th Liffe officially opened yesterday. Go to gallery >>
- 07 Nov 2018 ι Renovations are being carried out to Cankarjev dom’s roof.
To access CD halls and other premises please use the entrances from the Republic Square and Maxi underpass, as well as the Prešernova Street employee entrance.
The Great Reception Hall’s Idealist Bar and the CD Club Restaurant are open as usual. Please take the employee entrance lifts (Prešernova Street) to enter the CD Club.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
- 20 Sept 2018 ι Film submisions
The festival does not accept film submisions. Thanks for your understanding.
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