The Oldenburg International Film Festival, often dubbed Germany’s Sundance, will this year pay tribute to one of the country’s most revered filmmakers, Dominik Graf, with a special retrospective.
The 31st edition of the festival, running from Sept. 11 to 15, will spotlight Graf’s prolific career, as one of Germany’s few masters in genre filmmaking.
Graf, 71, began his career in the 1970s, inspired by American indie directors like Sam Fuller and Robert Aldrich and French auteurs such as Jean-Pierre Melville, using arthouse techniques and storytelling for crime, comedy and other genre tales.
The festival’s retrospective will showcase six of Graf’s most influential films, including thrillers Die Katze (1988) and Die Sieger (1995/2018 director’s cut), both of which have become genre-defining in German cinema and exemplify Graf’s distinctive, taut, economical approach to plot and character.
Alongside his feature film work, Graf is credited with setting new standards for TV movies and series in Germany, with groundbreaking procedural Der Fahnder (1993) and the 2010 limited series In the Face of Crime.
In addition to the screenings, Graf will be in attendance throughout the festival and will present a masterclass on Sept. 14, moderated by filmmaker and journalist Rüdiger Suchsland, where he will discuss his approach to filmmaking and storytelling.
The Oldenburg International Film Festival has long been known for its eclectic programming and support of boundary-pushing filmmakers, particularly ones that combine traditional genres with indie and arthouse styles, making Dominik Graf an ideal filmmaker to celebrate.
The 2024 Oldenburg Film Festival opens Sept. 11 with the world premiere of Traumnovelle, Florian Frerichs’ adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler novella that inspired Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
