With an exceptionally strong competition program, the 73rd Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, after Covid and a change of management, could for the first time profoundly follow its great tradition: the discovery of new directing talent.
“Only those who change remain true to themselves” – I thought of this motto at the festival’s 2024 edition, in my personal review of more than 40 years of festival history. The fact that the sentence is not, as I thought, just an unusual proverb, but the title of an autobiographical song by the German political bard Wolf Biermann, fits well with the history of Germany’s second oldest film festival.
Because after the initial phase as a good documentary film week, Mannheim in the 1960s and 70s was the platform and setting for a young international cinema that aesthetically questioned genres and narrative styles and political power structures within production and release. The anecdote is legendary, according to which the revolutionary audience at the Mannheim Film Week in 1970 decided in a grassroots democratic manner that the filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet should send the prize money for their film Othon to Vietnam to buy bicycles for the North Vietnamese Viet Cong.
Focus on debuts
Long before the festivals in Saarbrücken and Hof were founded and followed suit, Mannheim, with its focus on feature film debuts, was the German festival for international newcomers on their way to the top. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, François Truffaut, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch won their first festival prizes here, later followed by Lars von Trier, Atom Egoyan and many others. In 1993, when the festival was on the brink of collapse for financial reasons, the then director Michael Kötz saved it by bringing the neighboring city of Heidelberg on board.
In the course of its history, the festival has experienced some ups and downs, partly due to competition from more and more festivals in Germany and around the world. There were symposiums with filmmakers from young film countries, about society, politics and philosophy as well as film and production markets, later abandoned, and, of course, numerous retrospectives.
In the festival DNA: A desire for something new
What always remained with all the changes at the festival was the curiosity for something new, for innovative, even radical, disturbing cinematic styles and forms. And what also remained was the hospitality and sympathy of the festival organizers for the authors of the invited films, as well as the filmmakers’ enthusiasm and gratitude, even if they could not go home with a prize.
Change in order to remain true to oneself: When Sascha Keilholz was newly appointed festival director in 2020, he and his team had to accept the challenge of the Biermann title under extremely difficult conditions – at the beginning of the Covid pandemic and without handover and support from the previous festival management. Keilholz changed and deleted where it seemed appropriate, but with a clear view of the traditions and the DNA of the festival. The competition On the Rise continues to support international newcomers with their first and second feature films, and the name of the Pushing the Boundaries section alone shows that the Mannheim-Heidelberg festival is still all about openness and attention to what is new in world cinema.
2024: an excellent year
Anyone ever dealing with film selection knows that the end result depends not only on expertise, luck and negotiating skills, but also on the available films in the world market. At the 2024 edition of the Mannheim-Heidelberg festival, all of these factors seem to have come together perfectly.
On the Rise had an exceptionally high quality level, as well as a spectrum of genres and styles that any programmer couldn’t wish to be more diverse. And that despite a smaller number of countries of origin, because in addition to the USA (three entries), three countries were represented with two films. From Morocco came a queer auteur film (Cabo Negro) and the epically told emotional refugee drama Across the Sea (La mer au loin), which won the audience award. Two films from Georgia: Holy Electricity (Tsminda Elektroenergia) a somewhat shallow folkloristic loser comedy, and Panopticon, a strong coming-of-age drama about a young man who is almost torn apart by the contradiction between his awakening erotic feelings and his strict Catholic faith, shaped by his half-absent father.
The equally interesting and touching counterpart to this was one of the two Indian contributions, Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls. In a quasi-military boarding school, which is organized in the English tradition, everything revolves around religious-based rules and prohibitions. The model student Mira proudly takes on a leadership role. Until a charming classmate and diplomat’s son not only shakes her morals, but even her relationship with her beloved mother.
A policewoman in India
Santosh, a 28-year-old woman who suddenly finds herself faced with the ruins of her previous life after the violent death of her husband, is the protagonist of the second Indian entry of the same name – for me the outstanding film in the competition at the IFFMH 2024.
A well-meaning official tells the penniless widow that while she won’t receive a pension, under a new law she can enter the civil service and ‘inherit’ her deceased husband’s job. So Santosh becomes a police officer overnight, and we, the audience, experience with her all the contradictions that this job has in store for a woman in today’s India.
The British-Indian director Sandhya Suri develops in Santosh a very special genre mix from this plot. The sometimes intimate feminist emancipation drama becomes an exciting thriller in which many dark facets of Indian society are reflected: the degradation of women, the arbitrariness of the police apparatus, the deeply unjust caste system and the racial hatred of the Hindus against the Muslim minority.
At the beginning, Santosh gets to know the positive side – the anxious respect of the people on the street that her yellow uniform gives her, as well as the sweet poison of petty corruption. But she doesn’t get the recognition of her male colleagues at first. She has to fight for it, as her experienced colleague Sharma did, who after an initial rejection takes Santosh under her wing. The astute Santosh observes closely and learns quickly. This is how she tracks down the suspected murderer of a girl. But in the end, Santosh has to realize that she herself has become part of a criminal system.
Sandhya Suri’s feature film, which premiered in Cannes this year and was produced with German participation (TV stations ZDF/ARTE), was nominated by Great Britain as a candidate for the Foreign Oscar.
The strength of rebellion
The Brazilian feature film Manas by Marianna Brennand received two awards, the International Newcomer Award for the best film in the competition, endowed with 30,000 euros, and the Student Award (5,000 euros) from the Young Jury. Because of her subject matter – the widespread and hushed-up abuse of young girls in the family – the documentary filmmaker had to change genre and make her first feature film. According to Brennand, real testimonies from girls in front of her camera would have only increased the suffering of the victims.
In Manas she tells the fictional but very real story of the girl Marcielle, who lives with her parents and siblings on the edge of civilization in the Brazilian jungle. A life of poverty, but in a loving family, with a school education and a girl friend. Only gradually do we realize where the father’s special attention to his daughter leads.
In a semi-documentary style, sensitively and with a lot of sympathy for her protagonists, Marianna Brennand tells how the obedient Marcielle begins to defend herself and – while her mother remains silent – rebels against the abuse by her overpowering father. The story does not end well. But by highlighting the strength and growing self-confidence of her protagonist, the director gives the girls in Brazil and elsewhere the feeling, perhaps even the certainty: it is worth it and it is right to fight back.
Tragedy with sheep
A Brit with Irish roots directed the visually and emotionally powerful feature film Bring Them Down, which won the FIPRESCI Prize. Christopher Andrews’ film is a bloody, archaic drama about the battle between two sheep-farming families with ominous ties to one another. Because the director and co-author fragments his story and tells it from different perspectives, the viewer only gradually realizes that he is following events in the style of an ancient tragedy. Fortunately, there is still room for a little hope at the end.
Bound in Heaven (Kun bang shang tian tang), the Chinese entry in the competition, is a kind of contemporary remake of Love Story, combined with the theme of Pretty Woman, only with the roles reversed. Because she absolutely wants to go to a superstar’s pop concert, the well-off, engaged businesswoman Xia Yo comes into close contact with the simple street vendor Xu Zitai and spends a passionate night with him. But their unconventional love story has a limited horizon because Xu Zitai is terminally ill.
In her first film as a director, the successful screenwriter Huo Xin proves that she and the entire Chinese cinema can now produce great emotional cinema just as universally, professionally and effectively as Hollywood. For this she was awarded the Ecumenical Jury Prize (€2,500).
Psychological thriller with a retro look
Two other films in competition deserve more than just a mention.
The feature film debut Gazer is a small neo-noir from the USA, financed by the authors themselves. It was shot – on 16mm – by the self-taught filmmaker and trained electrician Ryan J. Sloan and his screenwriting partner and leading actress Ariella Mastroianni – and then received invitations to six international film festivals, including the Quinzaine in Cannes.
Mastroianni, only distantly but nevertheless related to the prominent actors Chiara and the immortal Marcello, plays Frankie with beautiful understatement, a woman with a rare disease, which makes it difficult for her to concentrate on her surroundings. She fights against it with self-recorded audio cassettes. And when she witnesses a violent crime one evening, Frankie even has to act as an investigator on her own behalf.
The atmospheric psychological thriller with a retro look is set in the present, but with quotes from classics such as Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Vertigo the two talented newcomers from New Jersey point far back into the history of cinema without losing the originality of their story.
Atmospheric Corsica
In contrast, the French feature film The Kingdom (Le Royaume), an atmospheric, authentic-looking mafia thriller set on the island of Corsica, where the successful short film director Julien Colonna grew up, offered sophisticated mainstream cinema with a special debut.
The way he tells the genre plot with extremely solid craftsmanship and links it to a complex daughter-father relationship, Colonna will certainly have a career in the film industry. The way he directs his young protagonist is outstanding, but what the amateur actress Ghjuvanna Benedetti makes of it is breathtaking. In the film, she develops as Lesia, the daughter of a mafia boss, from a shyly observant teenager to an attentive confidante of her father, who eventually takes up arms herself.
In real life, the 22-year-old Corsican Ghjuvanna, as the French Vanity Fair reports, is currently completing her first year of nursing school in Bastia and is a volunteer with the fire department. Benedetti’s acting debut will probably soon be shown on the platform of co-producer Netflix.
Forgetting with good people
A choreographer is making her debut film about an old lady who has slipped into dementia – a project that could easily go wrong. But in Familiar Touch, US director Sarah Friedland tells Ruth’s story so simply and convincingly, in clear, carefully designed shots (Gabe C. Elder is outstanding behind the camera), that it never becomes embarrassing, except in the moments when real life also becomes embarrassing. For example, for Ruth’s son, who wants to take his mother to the upscale retirement home as quickly and as conflict-free as possible.
But neither he nor the other people in this film, caregivers and residents, are denounced as guilty or their behaviour as questionable. Everyone retains their dignity.
When we accompany Ruth, the fine old lady with excellent manners, as she tries to find her way in her new life, we experience both sad and funny scenes. Sometimes Ruth flashes upon the shocking realization of her situation, but with her we also feel the certainty that the people around her mean well by her.
A glimpse of the festival’s history with RWF
When Familiar Touch deservedly received the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Award for the best screenplay (€15,000) at the awards ceremony, the festival’s past and a glimpse of film history came to life on stage. The award was presented on behalf of the Fassbinder Foundation as the donor by Mannheim-born Juliane Maria Lorenz, who edited many of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s important films – usually together with him. Eight months before his death, she accompanied Fassbinder to Mannheim in October 1981 to show their recently completed documentary film Theater in Trance as a world premiere as part of the festival’s 30th anniversary, together with Fassbinder’s debut feature film Katzelmacher, which had won the Interfilm Prize at the Mannheim Film Week in 1969.
Achim Forst
Edited by Amber Wilkinson
© FIPRESCI 2024
© stills
Bring Them Down: MUBI, Patrick Redmond
Familiar Touch: Armchair Poetics LLC
Manas: Bendita Film Sales
Santosh: Taha Ahmad
Festival report on „Gespenster der Freiheit‟ (Phantoms of Liberty) in German:
https://gespenster-der-freiheit.de/73-filmfestival-mannheim-heidelberg-sich-treu-geblieben/