Expat Cinema Rotterdam

► ABOUT THE FILM
Things aren’t looking good for Carlobianchi and Doriano, both in their fifties and they’re almost broke. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the friends haven’t managed to pull off a lucrative scam. They’re waiting for the return of their old mate Genio, who stashed the loot from a job before fleeing to Argentina. In the meantime, the men pop into a pub where they meet Giulio, a shy and somewhat lost architecture student. What begins as a ‘last drink’ soon turns into a chaotic, boozy trip through the Venetian countryside – a journey on which the men in their fifties, with their unsolicited advice, hangovers and wild memories, give Giulio a fresh perspective on life and love.

► ABOUT THE FILM
Fatherland is the new film by Oscar-winner Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War, Ida). Once again, Pawlikowski depicts post-war Europe – where identity and family clash – in a dazzling yet understated manner. In Fatherland, Hanns Zischler (Munich) and Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of Fall, Zone of Interest) play father and daughter Thomas and Erika Mann at a pivotal moment in their lives.

In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, the writer and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika set off on an emotional road trip through a devastated and fragmented Germany. In a black Buick, they drive from US-controlled Frankfurt to Soviet-occupied Weimar. After sixteen years in exile in the United States, Thomas Mann is confronted not only with a divided homeland, but also with a tragedy within his own family

► ABOUT THE FILM
A turquoise sea sparkling in the sun, pastel-colored houses clinging to steep cliffs, and a plate of pasta with fresh pesto: is this paradise? The 3.5 million tourists who visit Italy’s Cinque Terre every year certainly seem to think so.

The 4,000 residents themselves are no longer so sure. Every summer, their five villages on the Ligurian coast are swamped with tourists. Yes, people are making money, but at what cost? The infrastructure is buckling under the strain, garbage bins are overflowing, and young people can no longer afford a house in their own village.

An Irish film crew spent a season in this besieged paradise to see how mass tourism affects a place like this. With a gently ironic but affectionate gaze and a sharp eye for detail, they follow a beleaguered restaurant owner, a winemaker, a philosophical fisherman, a frustrated mayor, an American influencer. Everyone in their own way (and with varying degrees of success) is trying to strike a balance between economic interests and quality of life.