Best German film of 2011 to screen at Rice April 21

Director Andreas Dresen will participate in Q-and-A

The 2011 German movie “Stopped on Track,” voted best film of the year by German film critics and a prize winner at Cannes, will make its U.S. premiere at Rice University April 21.

Andreas Dresen

Director Andreas Dresen will attend the screening and also an April 20 screening of another of his award-winning films, “Cloud 9.” He will participate in a Q-and-A session after each screening at the Rice Media Center.

Both films will be shown at 7 p.m. in German with English subtitles. The screenings are free and open to the public.

“Stopped on Track” (“Halt Auf Freier Strecke”) tells the story of a family man who is dying of cancer. The social drama premiered last year at the Festival de Cannes, where it won best film in the Un Certain Regard category. At Berlin 2012, Germany’s film critics picked “Stopped on Track” as best German film of the year, and star Milan Peschel won the best-actor award for his portrayal of an ordinary man diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.

“Cloud 9” (“Wolke 9”) is a 2008 romantic drama about a woman who enters into an affair after 30 years of marriage. It won the Jury Coup de Coeur at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard category, and Dresen won the Film Award for Gold for best direction at the 2009 German Film Awards.

“Andreas Dresen is one of Germany’s most celebrated contemporary filmmakers,” said Christian Emden, associate professor of German studies at Rice. “It was a coup for Rice University’s School of Humanities to get Andreas to come to campus since most directors whose films have won awards at all the major film festivals stick to Los Angeles and New York. I hope the Houston community will take advantage of this opportunity to spend two evenings with this outstanding independent filmmaker. We’re grateful to the consulate general of the Federal Republic of Germany for their help with this event.”

The film screenings are being presented by Rice’s departments of German Studies and Visual and Dramatic Arts in the School of Humanities. For more information, contact Mariana Ivanova, lecturer in German studies, at mariana.ivanova@rice.edu.