Venice: Wim Wenders’ ‘Beautiful Days of Aranjuez’ Leads German Contingent

Ed Meza

1 September 2016 at 1:00 am

Wim Wenders’ “The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez,” a 3D adaptation of Peter Handke’s play about a man and a woman who share their thoughts on love while sitting in a garden on a summer day, is having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

It’s one of a slew of German films and co-productions screening at this year’s fest.

Ukrainian helmer Sergei Loznitsa’s “Austerlitz,” a documentary about visitors to memorial sites at German concentration camps, produced by Germany’s Imperative Film, unspools out of competition.

“One of the biggest mysteries of such places is the motive that induces thousands of people to spend their summer weekends in former concentration camps looking at ovens in a crematorium,” Loznitsa says. “To try to come to grips with this, I made this film.”

Ronny Trocker’s “Die Einsiedler,” a German-Austrian co-production from Berlin-based Zischlermann Filmproduktion about the only son of an aging couple living in a run-down farm in the Alps, unspools in the Horizons sidebar. “Die Einsiedler” was selected for last year’s Venice European Gap-Financing Market, in which producers can pitch their projects and find international financing partners.

German co-productions in competition include Martin Koolhoven Western-thriller “Brimstone”; Francois Ozon’s historical drama “Frantz”; Terrence Malick’s “Voyage of Time”; Andrei Konchalovsky’s “Paradise”; and “The Untamed,” by Amat Escalante.

Maren Ade’s celebrated comedy-drama “Toni Erdmann” will screen in the independent Venice Days as one of the three finalists for the European Parliament’s Lux Prize.

In addition, Venice Classics presents the newly restored version of Veit Harlan’s 1943 work “The Great Sacrifice.”

The German presence this year extends to the competition jury, which includes award-winning actress Nina Hoss (“Barbara”).