Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 29, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Towards the end, it became tight once again: Only today is the last 35mm film print coming from the laboratory – just in time to be shown at the »Graduation 2007« of the ifs international film school cologne. 24 students in the subjects Screenwriting, Film Directing, Creative Producing and Sound Design are presenting their graduation works today at the Cinenova cinema in Cologne, with which they are completing their three-year film studies
or their two-year Sound Design/Film training. 8 fictional short films between 15 and 37 minutes can be seen, and 5 screenplays for feature-length films will also be presented. Since the Film degree programme at the ifs is still quite young, this year’s graduates are only the 2nd class to leave the ifs. Even before today’s presentation, the first ifs graduation film could be seen on
the big screen:
»Absolution« (director: Markus Sehr, production: Moritz Grenzebach) celebrated its premiere last week at the Int. Hof International Film Festival. The psychodrama with Nina Petri and Hans-Jochen Wagner in the leading roles deals intensely with the theme of guilt and forgiveness in a dense chamber play.
Dramas are in fact strongly represented among the graduation films, with all the films distinguished by a very individual signature:
In »Robin« (director: Hanno Olderdissen, production: Katrin Hohendahl, screenplay: Clemente Fernandez-Gil, sound design: Tilman Hahn), the subject of child neglect is told from the perspective of little Robin.
»Pietas« (D/S: Matthias vom Schemm, P: Nima Kianzad, SD: Jan Blömeke)emphasizes the humble submission that begins to falter in a Pietist parsonage, with an elegiac narrative style in expressive black-and-white images.
In »Der Verdacht« (D/S: Felix Hassenfratz, P: Mathias Casanova, SD: Barbara Katz), a woman no longer knows what she can believe from her husband, who is suspected of murder. The Baden dialect authentically conveys the bourgeois narrowness of the village community, which has already passed its judgment.
Problematic father-daughter relationships are the subject both of »Grenze« (D: Christine Wernke, S: Christiane Hütter, SD: Stefan Fendrich), where a childhood escape trauma is revealed in flashbacks and dream sequences, and of »Der Boden unter den Füßen« (D: Katharina Tillmanns, P: Mathias Krämer, Martin Schwitzner, S: Nathan Raimann, SD: Luiz M. Paiva e Silva). Here, the process of the
daughter detaching from her father against the background of forced resettlement in the lignite-mining area was filmed at original locations.
»Beento« (D: Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye, P: Florian Müßener, S: Florian Wimmer, SD: Luiz M. Paiva e Silva), despite its autobiographical reference and with a humorous narrative tone, is devoted to a relationship without a future in the GDR.
The comedy »Ein Fall für KBBG« (D: Daniel R. Siegel, P: Nima Kianzad, Katrin Hohendahl, S: Christoph Mathieu, SD: Jan Blömeke), on the other hand, parodies the youth audio plays of the 1980s with numerous effects and different levels of action.
Special attention is also paid to sound design in all the graduation films; after all, the sound designs of the films are at the same time the graduation works of the four ifs sound-design graduates and thus a sample of their abilities.
And the prospective screenwriters from the Film degree programme also demonstrate their skills. In pitches, moderated conversations and readings of selected screenplay excerpts, the five authors each present their graduation screenplay for a feature-length film. In addition, as a team they have developed a mystery series for television in two different variants.
Some of the graduates already had to take time off for the graduation presentation
because they are already in permanent employment or are working on follow-up projects.
Thus, even at this point, studying at the ifs has already borne fruit for their professional future.
Further links:
- Film school
