Before the dawn

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Movie
Original title Before the dawn
Country of production Germany , France , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2016
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
JMK 0
Rod
Director Maria Schrader
script Maria Schrader,
Jan Schomburg
production Stefan Arndt ,
Danny Krausz ,
Denis Poncet
music Tobias Wagner
camera Wolfgang Thaler
cut Hansjörg Weißbrich
occupation

Before the Dawn (reference title Before the Dawn - Stefan Zweig in America ) is a German - French - Austrian co-production from 2016 . The feature film , directed by Maria Schrader , tells the life of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig in exile, played by Josef Hader . The German premiere was on May 30, 2016 at the Delphi Filmpalast in Berlin . The premiere in Austria was on May 31 at the Gartenbaukino in Vienna , and it was released on June 2, 2016. The film was shown on August 9, 2016 at the Locarno Film Festival . The film was shown in French cinemas on August 10, 2016.

action

Main actor Josef Hader

In six episodes, the film tells the last years of the life of the Viennese Jewish bourgeois writer Stefan Zweig from 1936 to his joint suicide with his second wife Lotte in 1942.

In the first shot, servants are putting the finishing touches to a flower-filled banquet , whereupon the invited company begins to pour into the hall to finally meet the present Dr. To honor Stefan Zweig. Zweig was celebrated at the PEN Congress in Buenos Aires in 1936, but journalists urged in vain to take a political position against Hitler's Germany .

During a trip with Lotte, he was shown a sugar cane plantation in Bahia because he was planning a book about Brazil. Receptions are prepared for him all over the country. In 1941 his first wife in snowy New York asked him to obtain immigration papers for friends and acquaintances based on his position. In addition, his two stepdaughters appear; Lotte joins them and he gets a visit from the New York publisher Ben Huebsch , who wants to persuade him to stay in the USA permanently. In November 1941 Zweig can be seen in Petrópolis , Brazil, where he has settled. On his 60th birthday he met Ernst Feder there , who he chatted to his new place of residence and then to the bus stop (he reported on his new book The Schachnovelle ). Seemingly cheerful, but filled with deep concern for Germany and Europe. Later, friends and his wife give him a dog.

The film shows how Zweig suffers from his uprooting despite the hospitality shown to him; it is also difficult for him to get used to the new culture. He also despairs of the military successes of Hitler's Germany and the fact that some of his friends had to stay behind in Europe and he can no longer help them. Stefan Zweig takes his own life together with Lotte. The last shot shows the local police investigating the case while friends, acquaintances and employees gather in the house to mourn. Ernst Feder reads out the farewell letter written in German . From this it can be seen that the film title refers to Zweig's view that a better Europe is on the way, but that one is still before dawn.

production

The shooting took place from April to June 2015, the shooting took place in Germany (Halle and Berlin), Sao Tomé and Lisbon . The film was supported by the Austrian Film Institute , Central German Media Funding , the German Film Funding Fund , Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Mini Traité; Austrian and Bavarian radio broadcasters were involved . The film was produced by X Films , co-producers were Idéale Audience, Maha Productions and Dor Film .

The film was released on DVD in 2018 as part of the Edition Österreichischer Film von Hoanzl and the Standard .

Reviews

Overall, the film received positive press coverage ( Moviepilot 8/10, Filmstarts 4/5).

Andreas Busche in Die Zeit praises the film as “virtuoso, without pretension and false patina”, which is “less of a biopic in the strict sense than a psychological study of a man”. The director finds "calm, psychologically tidy pictures".

The Focus described the film as a “successful, optically detailed, opulent, sometimes exotic shimmering work of contemporary history” and Hader as a “subtle and melancholy compatriot full of restraint and noticeable respect”, but criticized that “the history of the escape on the human level is hardly touching [ able] as one wishes. From the outside, Schrader looks all too much at the turbulence of a personal hunt for peace and spiritual home in a warlike era. "

Andreas Kilb from the FAZ praises the acting performance of Josef Hader and Barbara Sukowa, but overall the “wax museum remains mute”. “The suffering of the educated citizen and humanist as well as his fellow students is named, but it is less noticeable - the director's thoughts and events appear almost like a textbook. Insights into the inner workings of people are hindered. Instead, the film characters like to name authors' names ('I often think of Roth') and political events in order to ensure that the events can be classified in history - an anemic cinematic strategy. "

Tilman Krause complains in Die Welt that the film abstains from any rating. The renunciation of interpretation seems strangely helpless, discouraged, as if the director had let herself be infected by Zweig's loss of energy. It offers carefully illustrated contemporary history. It stirs you here and there, but on the whole you remain internally uninvolved.

In Der Spiegel , Oliver Kaever euphorically rated the film as the “great moment of German cinema” or “simply one of the best films of the year” and, in particular, made a reference to the current refugee situation. Daniele Muscionico also alludes to one of Zweig's most famous works in her review for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , entitled “Sternstunden der Despeiflung”, praising in particular the image design by cameraman Wolfgang Thaler and the acting performance of Josef Hader as Zweig.

Schrader's film also received a rather positive response from the Berlin press. Claudia Lenssen from the Tagesspiegel finds the exile's mental sensitivities convincingly portrayed, for Jenni Zylka in her contribution to the taz the artistically correct images were “finally” found in a film biography and Christina Bylow believes in her review for the Berliner Zeitung that the film can reproduce the inner state of a homeless person very well.

In his article for the industry magazine epd Film , Gerhard Midding finds that the film has found a similarly artistically elegant language to that found in the work of the author Zweig.

Audience response

The film entered the German cinema charts at number 8 on the weekend of its release (June 2 to 5) and number 1 in the art house charts. Overall, the film topped the art house charts for five weeks; In June 2016 it was seen by a total of 136,230 visitors and voted the second best film by the users of the film community Moviepilot . According to the production company X Films Creative Pool, it had more than 200,000 cinema-goers by the end of the year .

Awards

The make-up artists Monika Fischer-Vorauer and Andreas Meixner at the presentation of the Austrian Film Prize

At the German Film Awards 2016 , Maria Schrader received a nomination in the category Best Director, Barbara Sukowa was nominated for the best female supporting role. The work was awarded the “Filmkunstpreis 2016” at the Festival of German Films .

The film was nominated by the producers for the selection of the German candidate as best foreign language film at the 2017 Academy Awards . After Germany had nominated Toni Erdmann instead , Austria announced on September 6, 2016 that it would be sending Vor der Morgenröte into the race. The Austrian contribution to the overseas Oscar was rejected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the justification being the “imbalance of creative participation”. When AMPAS published the full list of nominated titles a few days later, Vor der Morgenröte was listed there. However, the film was not shortlisted from a total of nine candidates.

As part of the awarding of the Austrian Film Prize 2017 , the film was awarded in the category “Best Mask” ( Monika Fischer-Vorauer and Andreas Meixner), Josef Hader was nominated in the category “Best Male Actor”.

At the Bavarian Film Prize 2016 , Maria Schrader was awarded the Director's Prize. From the Association of German Film Critics , the film was the price of the German Film Critics in 2016 in the categories "Best Actor" (Josef Hader) and "Best Cinematography" (Wolfgang Thaler) excellent.

At the Papierenen Gustl of the Austrian film journalists, Vor der Morgenröte was awarded as the best Austrian film of 2016.

In 2017, the film was awarded the Audience Award for European feature films in German cinema as part of the Civis Media Prize. He was also nominated for the DACHS script award ( Five Lakes Film Festival ). At the 2017 European Film Awards ceremony , Josef Hader was nominated for Best Actor, while the film won the Audience Award.

Nominations:

Web links

Commons : Before the Dawn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Approval certificate for Before the Dawn . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 158996 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age rating for Before the Dawn . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Film premiere: “Before the Dawn” . derStandard.at, May 20, 2016, accessed on May 31, 2016.
  4. ↑ Before the Dawn - Festival del film Locarno . Retrieved July 26, 2016.
  5. ↑ Before dawn. Austrian Film Institute, accessed on May 31, 2016 .
  6. ↑ derStandard.at: The STANDARD edition "The Austrian Film" is now an impressive 310 pieces . Article dated October 12, 2018, accessed October 13, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Before the Dawn": slash and burn on the soul . Zeit Online, June 1, 2016, accessed August 3, 2016.
  8. ^ "Before the Dawn": Stefan Zweig's escape from Europe . In: Focus online, May 30, 2016, accessed May 31, 2016.
  9. ↑ Andreas Kilb: The last world of Stefan Zweig . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 3, 2016, accessed on June 20, 2016.
  10. ↑ Tilman Krause: About the freedom to end life . In: Die Welt, June 3, 2016, accessed June 20, 2016.
  11. ^ Great moment in German cinema . In: Spiegel Online, June 1, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  12. ↑ Great moments of despair . In: nzz.ch, August 17, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  13. ↑ Stefan Zweig in exile - lost in the tropics . In: Tagesspiegel.de, June 2, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  14. ↑ The great impotence . In: taz.de, June 1, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  15. ↑ A powerful film about exile in Brazil . In: Berliner Zeitung, June 3, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  16. ^ Review of Before the Dawn , epd-film.de, May 24, 2016, accessed on December 30, 2016
  17. ↑ Top 20 in Germany - weekend 23 . insidekino.de, June 6, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  18. ↑ Top 20 in Germany - weekend 27 . insidekino.de, July 4, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  19. ↑ Top 25 of the best films of June 2016. moviepilot.de, July 7, 2016, accessed December 30, 2016.
  20. ↑ Filmland Saxony-Anhalt: "Before the Dawn" . ( Memento from January 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) lv.sachsen-anhalt.de, November 30, 2016, accessed on December 30, 2016.
  21. ↑ Festival of German Films: An overview of the 2016 award winners . Press release of July 3, 2016, accessed July 5, 2016.
  22. ↑ "He's back" - Hitler satire wants to bring Oscar to Germany . Berliner Zeitung, August 3, 2016, accessed on August 14, 2016.
  23. ↑ Austria sends “Before the Dawn” in the race for an Oscar abroad . derStandard.at, September 6, 2016, accessed on September 7, 2016.
  24. ^ Oscar Academy rejects Austrian contribution . orf.at, October 7, 2016, accessed October 7, 2016.
  25. ↑ Oscar: "Before the Dawn" now in the race . diepresse.com, October 12, 2016, accessed October 12, 2016.
  26. ↑ Oscar chances for "Toni Erdmann" increase . orf.at, December 16, 2016, accessed on December 16, 2016.
  27. ↑ Nominations for the Austrian Film Prize 2017 . Austrian Film Academy, accessed on December 14, 2016.
  28. ↑ Merkur: Frauensache: Five women directors honored . Article dated January 21, 2017, accessed January 21, 2017.
  29. ↑ orf.at: Austria's film critic: “Toni Erdmann” best film in 2016, “Before the Dawn” is the best Austrian film . Article dated March 14, 2017, accessed March 15, 2017.
  30. ↑ CIVIS Media Foundation - Award ceremony 2017 . Retrieved June 3, 2017.
  31. ↑ Five Lakes Film Festival 2017: DACHS script award . Retrieved August 1, 2017.