Last week I attended the Media preview screening for 25km/h, a film from the 2019 German Film Festival screening in Sydney from May 21st – June 9th, presented by Palace Cinemas.
I genuinely loved ‘25km/h’, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again! Two brothers, reunited after their father’s death, embark on a moped journey to the Baltic Sea, fulfilling a crazy trip dreamed up when they were fifteen. Sounds pretty good, could be a bit typical, right? Wrong! Along the way they (of course) encounter some difficulties but mainly just have a good time, and it’s these good and positively wacky times that resulted in the audience laughing wholeheartedly in the cinema at several points. The brothers rediscover each other after 30 years apart, rediscover themselves when they come back to their German roots, and rediscover Germany in all its boisterous, jolly, sometimes nude, and, well, German nature. All of this jam-packed storyline is accompanied by stunning shots of German summer countryside, the Black Forest, towns, and the ocean. To cap it all off we have two excellent actors playing the brothers, constantly bouncing off each other in the way leads should to seriously make a movie.
Other films in the festival include the wicked-looking documentary Bauhaus Spirit: 100 Years of Bauhaus if you’re a design buff, the Opening Night film Balloon which tells the dramatic story of a family who escaped East Berlin in a hand-made hot air balloon, and The Captain, presenting the ‘arresting true tale of the wartime imposter Willi Herold’. In the New German Cinema stream there are 20-odd more wonderful new films including 25km/h, 100 things, where two friends vow to live without any possessions for 100 days, and How About Adolf?, a hilarious dinner-comedy unleashed when an expecting couple suggest the name ‘Adolf’ for their soon-to-be-son. The festival also has six films under the Kino (Cinema) for younger youth, three Austrian films and two Swiss-German films, all of which look amazing.
Kena – Film in Revolt
German Film Festival May 21st – June 9th
But the German Film Fest is showing much more than this one awesome flick, so check out the program and get to it!