Germany and the world

German cinema and its place in the world remain in focus with German Film Week, which runs next week at Paragon Cineplex in Bangkok.
Put on by the GeotheInstitut in Bangkok, German Film Week fol¬lows the recently concluded Open Air Cinema season and the ongoing “Wim Wenders: A Retrospective”, which looks at one of Germany’s lead¬ing filmmakers and wraps up tomor¬row at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom. German Film Week is also in addition to the Goethe’s regular German Film Series, which has monthly screenings at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and the Film Archive.
Among the highlights of German Film Week is the closing entry, “Patong Girl”, which was featured during the Open Air Cinema screen¬ings. Filmed in Phuket and featuring a Thai and German cast, the come¬dydrama follows a dysfunctional German family on vacation in Thailand.
The German Film Week pro¬gramme has films from 2013 and 2014, many of them award winners. Here’s the lineup:

Monday: “Who Am I – No System is Safe” – Baran bo Odar directs this thriller about a hacker who uses virtual reality to become “somebody”. An opening reception precedes this screening, beginning at 6pm.
Tuesday: “Schönefeld Boulevard” – Bodyimage issues come up in this comingofage drama about plussize teenage girl, who sees the world open up for her when construction of a new Berlin airport comes to her neighbourhood.
Wednesday: “The Age of Cannibals” (“Zeit der Kannibalen”) – Two longtime business consultants who make their living travelling to farflung countries advising compa¬nies, are both in for disappointment when they are passed over for a big promotion.
Thursday: “Inbetween Worlds” (“Zwischen Welten”) – In Afghanistan, a German soldier becomes conflicted between duty and his conscience as he works in a Talebancontrolled area with a young Afghan interpreter.
March 11: “A Godsend” (“Ein Geschenk der Gotter”) – An unem¬ployed actress takes a job teaching a theatre class to chronically jobless folks. They will try to put on the play “Antigone”.
March 12: “Jack” – A 10-year-old boy goes looking for his mother after she fails to turn up to collect him after school. It was a nominee for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2014.
March 13: “Patong Girl” – There's conflict for a German family on vacation in Phuket, when the teenage son falls for a local girl and runs off. Mum goes in search, but instead goes on a journey to find herself. Susanna Salonen directs.

Shows are at 7pm. All films will have English subtitles.
Tickets cost Bt120 and Bt150 at the Paragon Cineplex box office.On the Web:
www.goethe.de/ins/th/ban/enin¬dex.htm

Wim Wenders in 3DTomorrow
Visitors to the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, will get snazzy new eyeglasses to wear for the first 3D screenings at the facility.
Part of “Wim Wenders: A Retrospective”, the 3D pro¬gramme will feature dazzling dance in “Pina” and heartfelt drama in “Every Thing will be Fine”. The movies will flicker through a stateoftheart digital projector, and the audi¬ence will get to borrow the special glasses needed to see and experience the 3D imagery.
Put on by the Archive and the GoetheInstitut in Thailand, the twoweek event has featured a Lumpini Park screening of the German director’s masterpiece, “Wings of Desire”, and last weekend the Archive screened many more of Wenders’ films, covering his early years, with such 1970s entries as “Alice in the Cities” and his 1984 Cannes Palme d’Or winner, “Paris, Texas”.
On Saturday, first up at 1pm is “Pina”, Wenders’ tribute to German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, who died in 2009. It’s a film he had wanted to make with Bausch since the 1980s, but held off until 3D technology had devel¬oped to the point it would fit his exacting vision.
Following “Pina” will be “Every Thing will be Fine”, which has James Franco as writer who kills a child in a car wreck and then spends the next 12 years reflecting on how the tragedy has affected his life. Rachel McAdams and Charlotte Gainsbourg also star.
With 3D, Wenders seeks to “immerse” the audience in sights, sounds, experiences and storytelling. It’s a different approach than most 3D films, which rely on gimmicks and flashy special effects. Contemporaries of Wenders have taken similiar steps to embrace 3D, such as Werner Herzog with his 3D documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”, Martin Scorsese with his epic childhood drama “Hugo” or JeanLuc Godard with “Goodbye to Language”.
Wenders stated his case in an interview with Huffington Post last year.
“I have to talk so much about convincing people it will be worth it because it’s in their mind that 3D is not for them, especially in the art house,” Wenders said. “I’m a big defend¬er of 3D cinema and I’m shocked and sad about what is actually being done with this fantastic medium, and how much is going to the dogs  ... the industry is either ruining it or not accepting it as language. They just use it as effect and that drives me crazy. I really, really hope it still has a chance to catch on and be used by documentary filmmakers, authors and independent filmmakers. I don’t know why everybody is shying away from it. Everybody thinks it can only be used for effect.”
The Nation

For further details, check the Archive website, Fapot.org.