International premiere
Dear Thomas
The struggles of East German author and filmmaker Thomas Brasch turn into a poetic and seductive cinematic journey - about the artist and the 20th century he lived in.
East Germany is still a young country, but Thomas Brasch is already an outsider. His father wants to help build the new German state, but Thomas, the eldest son, would rather be a writer. He’s obsessive, a dreamer and a rebel. His very first play is banned, and soon afterward he’s expelled from film school. When Soviet tanks roll through Prague in 1968, Thomas and other students demonstrate on the streets of Berlin. His father reports him to the Stasi, which lands him in prison. Released on parole, he works hard, loves, and suffers, and writes about love, revolt, and death. With no prospect of being heard in East Germany, Thomas and the woman he loves depart the homeland that wasn’t theirs. In the West, he is acclaimed and his books become bestsellers, his films get invited to Cannes two times. But he refuses to be appropriated, and after the fall of the Berlin wall returns to east-Berlin.
Far from following biopic conventions, director Andreas Kleinert has taken the biography and made a manifesto for art and its power for change. Shot in marvellous black-and-white this film constantly changes between reality and feverish dream.
Christoph Gröner
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Andreas Kleinert (snd 1962) on kaasaegse Saksa filmikunsti üks tunnustatumaid režissööre, kelle kino- ja telefilme näidatakse rahvusvahelistel A-klassi festivalidel. Tema debüütfilm „Leb wohl, Joseph“ (1990) esilinastus Locarnos, järgmine täispikk film „Lost Landscape“ (1992) võistles aga San Sebastiani festivalil. Ka tema teised filmid „Öised rajad“ (1999, PÖFFil 2000), „Mein Vater“, „Barriere“ jt on osalenud A-klassi filmifestivalidel nagu Cannes, Veneetsia ja Berliin.
Valik: Leb' wohl, Joseph (1990), Verlorene Landschaft (Lost Landscape, 1992), Im Namen der Unschuld (In the Name of Innocence, 1997), Wege in die Nacht (1999, Rajad pimeduses, PÖFF 2000), Mein Vater (2003), Freischwimmer (Head Under Water, 2007), Barriere (2010), Lieber Thomas (Dear Thomas, 2021)
Grand Prix for The Best Film, grant of 20 000 euros from the city of Tallinn
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