Natural Disasters
Franz Seitz, one of the most important film producers of post-war Germany, helped shape German cinema through its ups and downs. He enriched it with a band of immortal school rascals, but he also brou…
Natural Disasters
Franz Seitz, one of the most important film producers of post-war Germany, helped shape German cinema through its ups and downs. He enriched it with a band of immortal school rascals, but he also brought a number of literary classics like Thomas Mann's works to the big screen, and his "Tin Drum" won Germany's first post-war Academy Award. The famous statuette now graces the desk of his granddaughter Anni Seitz. A documentary filmmaker herself, Anni goes on a journey to learn more about his work and his life, and to uncover his cinematic as well as his personal stories. All the questions she waited too long to ask him, she now puts to his many friends and colleagues, like Volker Schlöndorff, Hansi Kraus, or Uschi Glas, but also to his own sons. What emerges is more than a personal portrait, it is a history of German cinema between crises and new beginnings. A life in show business - Franz Seitz knew how to charm and entertain with his stories. He would often write screenplays or direct the movie himself; but being a crafty storyteller also enabled him to distract from inconvenient truths and to keep some personal secrets hidden from view. This film is touching in its honesty and the closeness it develops to its protagonists, and it delights through its light touch and humor in a cinematic style that playfully mixes interviews with archival footage, photos, and film clips.
Natural Disasters
Comedy,Drama
Film Details
Franz Seitz, one of the most important film producers of post-war Germany, helped shape German cinema through its ups and downs. He enriched it with a band of immortal school rascals, but he also brought a number of literary classics like Thomas Mann's works to the big screen, and his "Tin Drum" won Germany's first post-war Academy Award. The famous statuette now graces the desk of his granddaughter Anni Seitz.
A documentary filmmaker herself, Anni goes on a journey to learn more about his work and his life, and to uncover his cinematic as well as his personal stories. All the questions she waited too long to ask him, she now puts to his many friends and colleagues, like Volker Schlöndorff, Hansi Kraus, or Uschi Glas, but also to his own sons. What emerges is more than a personal portrait, it is a history of German cinema between crises and new beginnings.
A life in show business - Franz Seitz knew how to charm and entertain with his stories. He would often write screenplays or direct the movie himself; but being a crafty storyteller also enabled him to distract from inconvenient truths and to keep some personal secrets hidden from view. This film is touching in its honesty and the closeness it develops to its protagonists, and it delights through its light touch and humor in a cinematic style that playfully mixes interviews with archival footage, photos, and film clips..