Having had no luck scoring a nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar since Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon six years ago, Germany has just announced the shortlist for consideration as the country's entry for the 88th Academy Awards. The eight films listed are:
- 13 Minutes (Elser) by Oliver Hirschbiegel
- Head Full of Honey (Honig im Kopf) by Til Schweiger
- Jack by Edward Berger
- Labyrinth of Lies (Im Labyrinth des Schweigens) by Giulio Ricciarelli
- Sanctuary (Freistatt) by Marc Brummund
- Schmidts Katze by Marc Schlegel
- Victoria by Sebastian Schipper
- We Are Young. We Are Strong. (Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark.) by Burhan Qurbani
Let's take a closer look...
With 13 Minutes, Oliver Hirschbiegel, previously submitted for The Experiment in 2001 and nominated for Downfall in 2004, places an Oscar-safe bet with his telling of the real-life story of Johann Georg Elser's (Christian Friedel) failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in 1939. It's about as exciting as history lessons get, but everyone involved certainly knows what they're doing, and given the subject matter I wouldn't be shocked to see 13 Minutes emerge as the eventual submission.
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While international audiences might be most familiar with Til Schweiger's Nazi-killing German soldier Hugo Stiglitz from Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, he's been an almost unavoidable presence on German screens big and small for two decades now, in recent years cranking out entry after entry of his signature brand of inoffensive rom-com. For his tragicomic effort Head Full of Honey he enlisted veteran comedian Dieter Hallervorden to play an Alzheimer's-stricken retiree coming to live with his son and granddaughter (Schweigers Til and Emma, respectively). The film ended up being Germany's most-attended of 2014, but if that enthusiasm can translate towards Oscar remains to be seen.
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Reviewing it at last year's Berlinale, Variety's Guy Lodge was cautiously favorable towards "Edward Berger's well-acted social-realist drama" Jack. Praising Jens Harant's cinematography and the cast led by first-timer Ivo Pietzcker in the title role as a ten-year-old taking on grown-up responsibilities when he and his younger brother are all but abandoned by their hard-working, hard-partying single mother, Lodge calls the film "fine, but hardly inspired."
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Nahaniel gave Labyrinth of Lies high marks when he reviewed it from TIFF last year, calling it an "impressive debut feature" from director Giulio Ricciarelli and singling out Alexander Fehling's "very well modulated" performance, which "grows more and more intense" as the film goes on. The second based-on-true-events title on this list to deal with the country's Nazi past, Labyrinth of Lies follows an idealistic young prosecutor working to reveal the extent of German war crimes and atrocities a decade after World War II. Nominated for four German Film Awards, its chances of becoming the official Oscar submission cannot be dismissed.
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Louis Hofmann, declared Best Newcomer at this year's Bavarian Film Award, plays Wolfgang, a rebellious 14-year-old sent to a foster home for difficult children in the 1968-set coming-of-age drama Sanctuary from director Marc Brummund. The film received mostly positive reviews, but isn't exactly buzzing with Oscar-anticipation. (You may want to look for Sense8 star Max Riemelt in a supporting role, though.)
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As the only flat-out comedy on the list, Marc Schlegel's Schmidts Katze is the least likely contender in the race, and given that even its German theatrical release is still six weeks off, there aren't any reviews to be found which might reject that assessment.
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This writer's favorite film of the year so far, Sebastian Schipper's Victoria, recent winner of a sweeping six German Film Awards, should be considered a shoo-in for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, if it wasn't for a teeny, tiny problem: it's not technically a foreign language film. Most of this Berlin-set, shot-in-one-take drama's dialogue is indeed in English, but it's English as a second language, spoken and thus affected by native speakers of German or Spanish. The Academy has accepted this submission "with reservations," a final decision "regarding the proportion of English in the film" is awaited.
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We Are Young. We Are Strong., Afghan-German director Burhan Qurbani's sadly relevant dramatization of the 1992 Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots, was nominated for three German Film Awards, winning Best Supporting Actor (Joel Basman). But the reviews were mixed, and given some of the other films presented here, this one seems like a long shot.
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The final pick for submission as Germany's Oscar entry will be announced on Thursday, August 27, 2015.