Edmund Moeschke in "Germany, Year Zero" at the Last Picture House -- September 16.
Wednesday, September 16, 6 p.m.
The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With the third offering in its series directed and co-written by legendary director and Italian neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini, the German American Heritage Center continues its “The Lost Years of German Cinema: 1948-1963" film screenings with Germany, Year Zero, which enjoys a September 16 screening at Davenport venue The Last Picture House.
Burdened with the difficult task of providing for his family in Allied-occupied post-World War II Berlin, Germany, Year Zero's brave 12-year-old Edmund Köhler (Edmund Moeschke) scrapes by on whatever he can find in the war-battered streets. Undoubtedly, this is a great responsibility, but with his father (Ernst Pittschau) too sick to get out of bed and his older ex-Nazi brother Karl-Heinz (Franz-Otto Krüger) hiding from the authorities, Edmund is the family's only chance of survival. Consequently, the innocent and desperate boy must soon accept a risky proposition from his former teacher Herr Henning (Erich Gühne), who seems to still be nostalgic for the old days. Edmund if forced to ask himself: Can an unrepentant Nazi's venom still be potent?
As was his usual custom, Rossellini cast Germany, Year Zero with non-professionals that he met on the street. Rossellini found Ernst Pittschau sitting on the front steps of a retirement home and discovered that he had been a silent film actor forty years earlier. He saw former ballet dancer Ingetraud Hinze standing in a food line and was struck with the look of despair on her face. Franz-Otto Krüger came from a family of academics and had been imprisoned by the Gestapo during the war. Other smaller parts were cast with such people as a former Wehrmacht general, an ex-wrestler, a literature and art history professor, a model and a group of children that were bored of living on the streets.
The film went on to win the Golden Leopard and Best Director awards at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1948, and with L'Écran français describing Germany, Year Zero as "revolutionary," Charlie Chaplin was quoted in Tag Gallagher's The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini as being "the most beautiful Italian film" he had ever seen.
Germany, Year Zero will be shown at Davenport's The Last Picture House on September 16 at 6 p.m., the screening followed by a post-film discussion with Stacy Barton, and guests are asked to check in at the German American Heritage Center table in the lobby. Admission is $12-15, guests will choose their seats upon arrival, and proceeds from ticket sales will go to Heritage Center programming For more information, call (563)322-8844 and visit GAHC.org.
