The middle of the world (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The middle of the world |
| Country of production | Germany , Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2016 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jakob M. Erwa |
| script | Jakob M. Erwa |
| music | Paul Gallister |
| camera | The Chau Ngo |
| cut | Carlotta smock |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Mitte der Welt is a German film by Jakob M. Erwa that was released in German cinemas on November 10, 2016. It is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Andreas Steinhöfel from 1998.
action
The 17-year-old Phil is returning home from a summer camp, where he lives a little off the beaten track, together with his mother Glass and his twin sister Dianne, in the old Villa Visible. They hardly have any contact with the residents of the village. Phil's family is considered strange and Dianne can supposedly talk to animals. However, they have a good relationship with the lesbian couple Tereza and Pascal. During his absence, a hurricane destroyed the area and the family's garden. Phil notices that something has changed in the relationship between his mother and sister and that they no longer talk to each other. Dianne hardly speaks to him either, although they have always had a close relationship. Phil prefers to spend the last days of vacation with the eccentric Kat, his best friend.
When school starts again, a new student, Nicholas, joins Phil's class. Immediately he feels drawn to him. A passionate affair ensues between the two. Nobody around him has a problem with that, he gets the key to her weekend hut from Tereza for undisturbed hours for two. When Nicholas is accepted by Kat, the three have a carefree time together. Phil isn't sure Nicholas really loves him, though. When he tells him that he doesn't know anything about him, Nicholas shows him at his house, in a shed, his collection of things that other people no longer want. Phil's love flares up again and he makes a showcase as a present for Nicholas in the carpenter's workshop of Glass' new friend Michael. When he gets to the shed, he sees Nicholas and Kat sleeping together. Nicholas later visits Phil and tells him that he needs him and Kat. Phil doesn't accept that and lets him stand.
Phil watches Dianne climb out of the window in the evenings. One day he follows her to a hospital. Phil asks his mother to talk to Dianne again, but she says she can't yet. When he asked what happened when he was gone, he got no answer. Since Phil can't stand the atmosphere in the family anymore, he moves to Tereza. Dianne also moves out shortly afterwards.
Flashbacks show scenes from the family's past when the twins were children. Glass came to Germany from America as a pregnant woman; the children never met their father and Glass does not tell them anything about him. Glass always has acquaintances, but she always pisses off her lovers with her behavior, especially to the chagrin of Dianne, who longs for a father. Glass becomes pregnant again, but she loses the baby in an alleged accident, and she almost bled to death. Glass advises Phil that a book of dried plants from the villa's library plays a role in the conflict with Dianne. He remembers that the adults told them back then that the poison of the belladonna made women more attractive in the Middle Ages: “And what they got into with their attraction, they got with the poison in higher quantities - zig - out of the World made. ”He finds the book page in Dianne's room. Dianne finally confesses to Phil that she gave the mother the poison in revenge, that she always drove away the "surrogate fathers". While Phil was away, Dianne's friend had a car accident caused by the storm. Since then he has been in a coma and Dianne visits him at night. Her friend had given her support; the accident threw her off course, and she confessed the poison story to her mother, which was the reason for the upset in the family. Phil moves Dianne to return, and the family - with Michael's help - comes together again.
After the end of the relationship with Nicholas, Phil now knows that his family is the "middle of the world" for him. When he asked about this as a child, his mother replied that it was somewhere else for everyone. Phil decides to travel to the United States for a while, also to look for his father there. Glass had told Phil that she had left him even though he was a good person. Shortly before leaving, she whispers his name in his ear.
production
Literary template
The novel Die Mitte der Welt , which served as a template for the film and was published in 1998, developed into a popular book for young people. Among other things, he was nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize in 1999 and was awarded the Buxtehude Bull in the same year . In 2000 the novel received the Young Readers Jury Prize , Vienna. The novel also made it onto the Spiegel bestseller list as the first German children's book.
Financing, staff and staffing
The film based on the novel was produced by Neue Schönhauser Filmproduktion, mojo: pictures and Prisma Film. The production received various public grants, including from the Vienna Film Fund and the Commissioner for Culture and Media of the German Federal Government .
The direction was taken over by Jakob M. Erwa , who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Erwa had read Steinhöfel's novel when he was 20 years old. According to his own statements, he had asked the author again and again for eight years how things were going with the rights. After receiving this, he worked on the film for six years.
The main role of Phil was cast by Louis Hofmann , who was awarded the German Actor Award for Best Young Actor just a few weeks before the premiere of the film . Jannik Schümann took over the role of Nicholas and Svenja Jung played Kat. In other roles are Sabine Timoteo as Glass, Inka Friedrich and Nina Proll as Tereza and Pascal, Ada Philine Stappenbeck as Dianne and Sascha Alexander Geršak as Michael, the new friend of Glass, to see.
publication
The film was presented on June 26, 2016 at the Munich Film Festival and at the same time at the Moscow International Film Festival . The film was presented to a German audience in September 2016 at the Leipzig Film Art Fair. The film is awarded by Universum Film and was officially released in German cinemas on November 10, 2016. From January 10, 2017, the film was presented at the Palm Springs International Film Festival . The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray and video-on-demand on May 12, 2017. In June 2017 the film will be presented at the Tel Aviv LGBT Film Festival, where it is nominated for the audience award in the Panorama section.
Its free TV premiere took place on August 30, 2018 on arte .
reception
Age rating
In Germany, the film is FSK 12. The reason for the release states: “The film deals with numerous youth-related topics in a predominantly calm, sensitive narrative style, tells of family, first love and the search for identity. Carefree, often poetic passages alternate with conflicted and melancholy scenes. The intensity of individual dramatic moments can unsettle children under the age of 12. "
Reviews
The Hollywood Reporter's Boyd van Hoeij welcomes the fact that only two people are at the center of the story: Thankfully, Phil and Nick's burgeoning relationship is at the center of the film, where a hot flirtation turns into a physical relationship. According to van Hoeij, it is a great strength of the film when Erwa shows how teenagers struggle with their sexuality, and the director proves that he understands that in physical love, sometimes less is simply more. Van Hoeij highlights the actors Hofmann and Schümann, who played the two boys in a loving and affectionate manner that is just as interesting to see as the young people they represent, who worry about their sexual inclinations and ask the question, if they will ever be happy. However, van Hoeij also notes that by focusing the film on the two boys, some of the characters, such as Kat and Diane, appeared to be neither protagonists nor minor characters, and were floating somewhere in between.
For Walli Müller from NDR , the film is an ode to being unadjusted, in which Phil experiences a childhood without prohibitions and has all the freedom, but still has to conquer his own life because he finds himself in an outsider role. Apart from the pedagogically valuable message, so Müller, the film is simply nice to watch, even for adults. Elmar Krekeler von der Welt says that Erwa made a wonderfully weightless film about being gay in the philistine world, but which also deals with the consequences of freedom and self-fulfillment, because in the film Phil looks like a child of Pippi Longstocking , it in but also give the world of children a longing for stability.
The film received mostly positive reviews after its cinema release. Die Zeit has the headline: "A lightning strike is nothing against it - a gay childhood love has never been told as airy and light as in the film 'Die Mitte der Welt'." Fabian Tietke calls the film in the taz a "happy moment of diversity in German film." ", Rainer Gansera emphasizes the achievements of the actors in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , but at the same time notes that the film would be" even more magical if the director could better curb their will to overdoing things and capricious frills ".
The film was selected for the 2017 German Film Prize .
The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating of particularly valuable .
Reactions in Russia
On the sidelines of the press conference during the premiere in Moscow, the film was rejected by some journalists and critics as propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations among young people, which are not allowed to be distributed in Russia. Kirill Raslogow, the program director of the film festival, had warned his compatriots: This film could shock the audience . The APA describes the problem of film in Russia: With this portrayal of society, the Graz film director reproduces a nightmare of right-wing conservative Russians who often disqualify Europe as 'Gayropa'. The Russian film critic Andrei Plachow, who heads the selection committee of the Moscow Festival, said: I fear that there will hardly be any companies in Russia that want to distribute this film. They understand that they will face problems. The film was received surprisingly friendly by the Moscow audience.
Awards (selection)
Moscow International Film Festival 2016
- Nomination in the main competition for the Golden George
Munich Film Festival 2016 (selection)
- Nomination for the New German Cinema Award in the Best Screenplay category
- Nomination for the New German Cinema Award in the Best Director category
- Nomination in the category Best Young Producer
- Nomination in the category Best Young Actor (Ada Philine Stappenbeck and Svenja Jung)
- Award for best cinema production: with the Children's Media Prize The White Elephant
- Award with the Youth Jury Prize ( Jakob M. Erwa )
- Award for the best music ( Paul Gallister )
- Nomination in the category Best Sound Design (Jörg Kidrowski, Veronika Hlawatsch and Bernhard Maisch)
- Award for Best Young Director (Jakob M. Erwa)
- Award audience Beaver, Audience Award (Jakob M. Erwa)
International Queer Film Festival Hamburg 2016
- Award Audience Award
- Nomination for the best book in feature film (Jakob M. Erwa)
- Award in the category Best Debut Film (Jakob M. Erwa)
Web links
- The center of the world in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Middle of the World - Official website for the film
- The Middle of the World - Trailer from Universum Film on Youtube (Video)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for the middle of the world . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 160448 / K).
- ↑ Age rating for the middle of the world . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Veronica Frenzel: Children's book author in Africa. What makes stories funny In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 18, 2013.
- ↑ Press kit: Andreas Steinhöfel In: carlsen.de. Retrieved July 20, 2016 (PDF; 363 KB)
- ↑ State Minister for Culture Grütters funds film and screenplay projects with around 2 million euros In: bundesregierung.de, May 29, 2015.
- ↑ Vienna Film Fund - The Middle of the World In: filmfonds-wien.at. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
- ↑ a b Walli Müller: 'Die Mitte der Welt': Ode to Unadaptation In: NDR.de, November 8, 2016.
- ↑ German Actor Award, Young Talent ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: ustinov-stiftung.de, June 1, 2016.
- ↑ Filmfest - Sehnsuchtsbilder In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 23, 2016.
- ↑ 38th Moscow International Film Festival started In: Focus Online, June 24, 2016.
- ↑ All films of the 16th Filmkunstmesse Leipzig 2016 In: filmkunstmesse.de. Retrieved August 30, 2016 (PDF; 47 KB)
- ↑ Center of My World In: psfilmfest.org. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
- ↑ The middle of the world In: universumfilm.de. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
- ↑ Audience Award In: tlvfest.com. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
- ^ Reason for release for the middle of the world In: Voluntary self-control of the film industry. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
- ↑ Boyd van Hoeij: 'Center of My World': Munich Review . In: The Hollywood Reporter , July 7, 2016.
- ↑ Elmar Krekeler: Coming out at the cinema has never been so relaxed. In: Die Welt , November 9, 2016.
- ↑ Wenke Husmann: A lightning strike is nothing against it. In: Zeit Online. November 10, 2016, accessed December 19, 2017 .
- ↑ Fabian Tietke: Feeling your way into life. In: the daily newspaper. November 16, 2016, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Film review by Rainer Gansera: “Die Mitte der Welt” in the cinema: Without a narrative center. In: süddeutsche.de. November 1, 2016, accessed November 14, 2016 .
- ↑ The preselection 2017 ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: deutscher-filmpreis.de. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
- ↑ A gay youth inspires Moscow In: Austria Press Agency (quoted in futter.) , June 27, 2016.
- ↑ Moscow recorded Jakob M. Erwa's new film without shock In: Kleine Zeitung, June 27, 2016.
- ↑ Main Competition ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: moscowfilmfestival.ru. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
- ↑ Prize-worthy: The middle of the world. 5 nominations for the New German Cinema Award - including for the best script, the best director In: m-maenner.de, June 10, 2016.
- ↑ Prize winners 2017 In: filmfest-muenchen.de. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
- ↑ The Prize of the Youth Jury 2016 In: filmkunstmesse.de, September 22, 2016.
- ↑ Austrian Film Prize 2017: 45 nominations for 17 films co-financed by ORF In: ots.at, December 14, 2016.
- ↑ Bavarian Film Prize for five women directors In: mediabiz.de, January 20, 2017.
