Südstadt (film)

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TV movie
Original title Südstadt
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2018
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Matti Geschonneck
script Magnus Vattrodt
production Wolfgang Cimera
Silke Pützer
music Marco Meister
Robert Meister
camera Theo Bierkens
cut Ursula Höf
occupation

Südstadt is a German TV film by director Matti Geschonneck from 2018. The drama was based on a script by the author Magnus Vattrodt and is the eighth collaboration between the two filmmakers. It tells of the everyday work and relationships of three couples who are friends and who live as neighbors in a house community in the inner-city district of the same name in Cologne and whose life concepts are put to the test through experiences with depression , career, children, affairs , divorce and death . The main roles are Anke Engelke , Matthias Matschke , Andrea Sawatzki , Dominic Raacke , Bettina Lamprecht and Alexander Hörbe .

action

Anne and Martin Lehmann have been married for 20 years. In recent years, however, the childless couple has become increasingly estranged from each other: Social worker Anne is having an affair with her colleague Wolf and is secretly planning a divorce, while Martin, a long-time research assistant at the university, hides from her that he has been for some time is unemployed after being fired from his job and looking for a fresh start. When he reveals to her at a joint dinner with the neighbors that he is no longer employed and has accumulated debts as a result, Anne is confronted with emerging existential fears and growing distrust and seeks advice from her father-in-law Eberhard. During a conversation that was actually intended to clarify, it finally comes to a scandal: When Martin confronts Anne with her relationship with Wolf, she leaves him and the shared apartment.

Saskia and Kai Fröhlich live together with their little daughter Polly on the floor above the Lehmanns. When the formerly successful marketing expert Saskia decides to escape her long life as a housewife and mother and go back to work full-time, her husband feels forced to take care of the upbringing of their daughter again - at the expense of his strenuous job as a TV- Journalist. While Saskia is flourishing professionally in her new position as an employee at a personnel service provider, Kai is coming under increasing pressure to master the balancing act between child and career. When he screwed up a live report from Frankfurt am Main for lack of time, a dispute broke out. Saskia, who has just found out that she is pregnant for the second time, finds herself cornered and decides to have the unborn child aborted - without even informing Kai about it.

After a series of short-lived affairs, the emergency doctor Eva Simon, who lives in the attic, wants to do everything differently and slowly take the relationship with her new partner Thomas Maiwald to life. After a marital crisis, he has just separated from his wife Karen, who stayed with their daughter Greta in their suburban home. Despite her reservations, Eva convinces him to move into her penthouse. When a spontaneous meeting, after being provoked by Greta, ends in physical violence, Eva suspects that Karen is raising the mood against her in Thomas and confronts her. Karen, who tells Eva about a completely different separation scenario than Thomas, raises doubts in her. When she indirectly confronts Thomas about it, Thomas takes to flight and asks Karen for forgiveness - but this does not want her marriage to be renewed. Eva, who learns about this via cell phone as a further provocation to Greta without Thomas knowing, feels forced to take him back in for the time being.

Production, background

Südstadt was produced by Network Movie under the direction of Wolfgang Cimera and Silke Pützer. Reinhold Elschot and Stefanie von Heydwolff were responsible for the ZDF editorial team. The shooting took place from May 3rd to June 8th 2017 in Cologne and the surrounding area. The main location was an apartment building on Zugstrasse. Geschonneck described Südstadt as a contemporary film that shows the existential changes in all protagonists and their lifetimes. The film "offers the opportunity for the audience to recognize themselves in the characters". The story lives "also from the playful mood of the actors who are the face of the film, in this case understandable characters, all looking".

Reviews

“ Südstadt has something irreconcilable about it without being loud. It is not the layout of Magnus Vattrodt's script staged by Matti Geschonneck that is spectacular, but the consistent, downright relentless execution ”, judged Judith von Sternburg in her review for the Frankfurter Rundschau . It is an "exceptionally strong, lively television film that is worth watching, even if the truth is always troubled and unsettled [...] What people endure and endure, what they are too weak for, indecisive, in love, friendly, conflict-shy, pitying is: You can see all of this here with an ensemble brilliantly led by Geschonneck. That is surprising in the unsurprising. It's always like that in life, almost never in television films. "

The ensemble around Anke Engelke received positive reviews for their playing.

In his review for Tagesspiegel , Nikolaus Festenberg wrote that the film shows "the inner homelessness of the 68 heirs" by looking into the souls of a generation that were "sent into life by their parents to live their ideals of freedom". While the younger ones made music, the older ones would continue to set the pace. The scenes in Südstadt are often characterized by "great scenic precision" - also in terms of acting: Andrea Sawatzki shows "her great art of crying with a smile", while Raacke plays the "wonderful rabbit foot" and Lamprecht puts on her character Saskia with wonderful impatience.

Claudia Tieschky from the Süddeutsche Zeitung perceived Südstadt as a surprisingly "quiet, laconic film" whose tone is in stark contrast to its cast and their talent for comedy . One should not regard the film as "a problematic film, for it is observable, nor for a work of emotion, for it is too close to topics such as the fear of decline of the middle class or the compatibility of family and work". Südstadt tells "a story of metamorphosis, not of the end of the world" and one likes to watch "so much because the film follows its characters with something that is outwardly unspectacular but still very important - in life and what it is."

In his review for Tittelbach.tv , Rainer Tittelbach found that Südstadt was the “most diverse and understandable relationship drama” of the duo Vattrodt / Geschonneck in terms of content and dramaturgy. The fact that the stories “work out so wonderfully” is “due to Vattrodt's clever interlinking of the connectable plots and the dramaturgy of the narrative omissions, which corresponds to Matti Geschonneck's montage of scarcity.” Vattrodt has found his master in Geschonneck, the “actor-director”. The cast is "perfect, the game is real and deeply true down to the smallest nuances."

Oliver Jungs from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described the production as a “realistic and at the same time successful pointed midlife study”, which convinces with its “courageously open script” and “excellent actors”. The latter "play - an ensemble film in the best sense of the word - all together with the persuasiveness of an authenticity improvised close to their own existence." Engelke and Matschke in particular were in top form with their facial expressions. Geschonneck shows how "it is good for a film if you give your characters (and actors) space to develop". The only thing is that "the fact that all three men now turn out to be whistles, be it emotional buffoons, be it as a miserable job failure, gives the story a slight side."

Publication, success

Südstadt celebrated its first broadcast on February 26, 2018 on ZDF . With 5.35 million viewers and a 15.8 percent market share, the feature film secured prime-time market leadership on that day . In the advertising-relevant target group of 14 to 49 year olds, 780,000 viewers tuned in; this resulted in a market share of 7.0 percent. In November 2018, the film competed at the 30th Baden-Baden TV Film Festival as one of twelve TV productions for the TV Film Prize of the German Academy of Performing Arts and the 3sat Audience Prize .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matti Geschonneck directs the ZDF film "Südstadt" in Cologne . Presseportal.de. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b Südstadt (2017) . Crew-United.de. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  3. ↑ Südstadt press kit . ZDF.de. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b Judith von Sternburg: middle of life . Frankfurter Rundschau . February 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  5. ↑ Nikolaus Festenberg: Everything flies - apart . Daily mirror . February 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  6. ↑ Claudia Tieschky: When the rabbit-hedgehog race ends too early . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  7. ↑ TV film "Südstadt" . Tittelbach.tv . Accessed in 2018-11-65.
  8. ↑ Oliver Junge: When the hare-hedgehog race ends too early . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  9. ^ "Quiz duel": Pilawa reports back stronger . dwdl .de. February 27, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  10. ↑ First watch, then choose - the 3sat audience award 2018 From November 24th, 3sat will be showing twelve television films over six days . presseportal.de. Accessed December 1, 2018.

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