The 75th Berlin International Film Festival will celebrate the offbeat and the wacky, mix it up with action, thrills, and graphic visuals of genre films from East and West Germany made in the 1970s, by showcasing 15 films in the Retrospective themed “Wild, Weird, Bloody”.
Influenced by the wave of exploitation films of the era, the 1970s are a treasure trove of offbeat movies that followed new narrative and aesthetic paths. It was a decade when a generation of young directors took their shot and tested the boundaries between the genres. With Deadlock (FRG, 1970), Roland Klick served up a mixture of post-apocalyptic gangster film and psychedelic western. That same year, Hans W. Geißendörfer turned his sights on the horror genre with his commanding vampire film Jonathan (FRG, 1970). West German filmmakers had counterparts in East Germany, such as Horst Bonnet, with his unusual adaptation of the operetta Orpheus in der Unterwelt (Orpheus in the Underworld, GDR, 1974), and Günter Reisch’s satire Nelken in Aspik (Cloves in Aspic, GDR, 1976). The section will also be showing films by directors such as Rainer Erler, Klaus Lemke, Ulli Lommel, and Wolfgang Petersen, expanding the Retrospective 2025 to include genres such as the biker film, thriller, and musical.
Dr. Rainer Rother, head of the Retrospective and Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek, says “A longstanding preconception says that Germans can’t do genre. But in fact, early German cinema laid a groundwork that was influential in the international development of fantasy and science fiction moviemaking. And even beyond that, both auteur filmmakers and commercial productions were drawn to genre films over the decades. Our Retrospective showcases pictures, made amid other film currents such as New German Cinema that embraced the appeal and played with the possibilities of a good genre flick.”
“Modern audiences eagerly embrace genre cinema and enjoy tracing crime, science fiction, horror and other genre roots all the way back to the earliest days of the form. This selection of deep thrills and blood spills offers so many discoveries, and shines a light into new corners of German cinema. We cannot wait to share it with audiences, local and international,” added Berlinale Director Tricia Tuttle.