Dreileben: Beats Being Dead

A unique project arising from an extended email discussion about German cinema, genre and the aesthetics of film, Dreileben brings together the talents of three of Germany’s most significant filmmakers: Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler. Dreileben is a fictional small town, the setting for three loosely-linked stories all sparked by a single event, the escape of a convict from police custody. Each of the three films is true to the storytelling and cinematic style of its individual director, and while each has small, deftly handled moments of connection, these are never seen from the same viewpoint. While the films do work in isolation, there is certainly richness in viewing them together, so we will be screening them once in a single sitting, and again as separate performances.

Beats Being Dead

In a large hospital in the middle of the Thuringia forest in former East Germany, Johannes is working as an intern. He’s secured his place because the head physician is a family friend, and Johannes has an onoff relationship with the doctor’s attractive daughter, Sarah. But when he meets Ana, a Bosnian refugee working as a local chambermaid, a more explosive affair develops, against the backdrop of a police search for an escaped sex offender, Molesch, who the inexperienced Johannes has unwittingly assisted. Petzold (The State I Am In, Yella, Jericho) brings a cool air of menace and unease to the story, and to the more fairytale elements of the setting and the youngsters’ romance.