Leroy (film)
Leroy is a satirical love comedy by director Armin Völckers , shot in Germany in 2006 . After the success of the award-winning 18-minute short film with the title Leroy clears up , the story was reworked and filmed in full length by the author and director Armin Völckers. The new edition was released in theaters on September 27, 2007 .
action
Leroy is a 17 year old boy and lives in Berlin. He prefers to read Goethe, plays the cello and is particularly shy and reserved with girls. With a father who, thanks to his anti-cell phone radiation belt, which is very successful in Japan, can spend his time with further inventions of dubious use, a left-wing liberal mother and an intrusive tutor, Leroy is actually busy when he falls in love with the beautiful Eva of all people .
When she returns his affection, happiness could be perfect. Leroy is German, but dark-skinned and Eva is surnamed Braun and her father is a politician of a right-wing party. Her brothers are also outright neo-Nazis. Problems related to the suicidal canary Rommel , stupid but malicious skinheads , a gay, Jewish acquaintance of Evas and Leroy's foreign friends are programmed. The situation escalates when the right-wing extremists instigated by Eva's brothers injure Eva of all people in an attack on Leroy. Leroy falls into a deep identity crisis, over which the encounters with Blacula , icons of the Black Power movement and his permissive German teacher help him. So he and his friends go over to the counterattack and can even overcome all right-wing extremism in an exaggerated film ending into the absurd by recording a song with Eva's brothers that reflects the story of the film ("All subcultures have disappeared over time. Rock , the punk. Everything was gradually destroyed by music. If I manage to commercialize National Socialism, it will also be destroyed. ").
Reviews
“A sympathetic multicultural comedy developed from a short film that doesn't always work out. Thanks to the convincing main actor and the rousing songs, the film is still extremely entertaining and, in its playful analysis of realistic and current problems, it plumbs in depth. "
“Cheeky, sometimes a little naive and as politically incorrect as possible - this is how this cool and refreshingly different comedy presents itself, which at the same time as a not very serious homage to the blaxploitation films of the seventies and their flagship ' Shaft ' goes through what goes on in Leroys Afro hairstyle, a video store visit to his black brothers and especially in the funky soundtrack. It is dominated by German hip-hop greats such as Afrob , Curse , Harris and Clueso , who play a major role in the success of this mix of love story, portrait of an outsider who is not one, and 'black' comedy. You can forgive 'Leroy' and its director even the end, which was a little too positive, optimistic and therefore unfortunately very unrealistic. "
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Leroy was composed partly by Berlin musicians but also by bands known in Germany and around the world. Among others, Blumentopf , Seeed , Denyo , Clueso and Bela B. play their own songs. In addition to his vocal part for the soundtrack, the rapper Afrob also has a speaking role in the film and plays the role of Blacula, who brings Leroy to his senses in a key scene. In addition to the real bands, the fictional skinhead band Skin'Sync still appears in the credits , with whose help Leroy intends to commercialize and thus destroy the right-wing radical skinhead movement .
Awards
The short film Leroy cleans up , on which the movie is based, received the “film +” award for film editing and montage art. He also won the award for “best short film” at the Time to Live Film Festival in Saint Petersburg in April 2006. The film was also shown on July 14th at ARTE with other short films.
At the 2008 German Film Awards , Leroy received awards in two categories: Best Film Music and Best Children's and Youth Film. The film also won two awards at international festivals.
The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.
| Tabular overview of awards and nominations | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| year | Award | For | category | result |
| 2007 | Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival | Leroy | Best movie | Nominated |
| Audience Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival | Audience award | Won | ||
| 2008 | German film award | Ali N. Askin | Best film score | Won |
| Leroy | Best children's and youth film | Won | ||
| Grifone d'Oro at the Giffoni Film Festival | Leroy | Best movie | Won | |
literature
- Mihaela Petrescu: Undoing Hegemonic Erasure: Afro-German Berlin in Armin Völckers's film Leroy (2007). In: Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies . University of Toronto Press, Volume 51, No. 4, 2015, pp. 333-356. (Digitized by Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/597922).
Web links
- Leroy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official trailer at kino.de
- Review at TV-KULT.COM
Individual evidence
- ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9
- ↑ Leroy (2007) on kino.de
- ↑ nordmedia.de: Prices for film and TV productions funded by nordmedia ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2014 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. , accessed February 23, 2013
