Festival Opening 2017
OPENING
The new feature film by renowned German director Matti Geschonneck, IN TIMES OF FADING LIGHT, will open the 27th FILMKUNSTFEST MV on May 2, 2017. It is the film adaption of the award-winning same-named bestseller about the writer Eugen Ruge, born in Oblast Swerdlowsk, the USSR, in 1954.
Over the course of four generations, the complex novel tells the epochal story of a family which falls apart in its own way during the final days of the East German regime. The literary version has been adapted for the silver screen by the legendary scriptwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase, winner of the FILMKUNSTFEST MV’s “Golden-Ox” in 2015. A further recipient of the honorary award by the FILMKUNSTFEST MV stars in the main role as the stubborn family patriarch: Bruno Ganz received the “Golden-Ox” in 2006 and has been nominated for the German Film Award 2017 for the role of Wilhelm Powileit, whose 90th birthday coincides with the final days of East Germany.
Three musicians from the guest country of this year’s FILMKUNSTFEST MV, Denmark, will be providing an atmospheric, musical setting for the opening ceremony. Morten Wittrock, Jes Holtsø and John Chipman play top-class blues rock. Jes Holtsø achieved fame in the role of Bø rge in the “Olsen Gang” films. The former child actor is now a welcome guest at Northern European blues rock festivals. Holtsø and the Morten-Wittrock-Band gave their first concert in Germany at the “Nordischer Klang” festival in Greifswald.
Frank Breuner from NDR (Norddeutsche Rundfunk) will be the host of the evening - replacing Knut Elsterman, who became ill and had to cancel the event.
