Work Without Author, the latest from Oscar-winner Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others), is opening in Germany and the Netherlands on 10.3. It screened for German press last week. A friend says it will “apparently” screen a few weeks hence at the Venice Film Festival “but nothing’s official.” Said to be somewhere in the vicinity of 170 or 180 minutes, give or take.
This teaser-trailer posted on 2.5.17 — I’m told that a new, much longer trailer (allegedly four minutes) has been assembled but isn’t out yet. Another source says pic is “a lightly fictionalized bio-pic of Gerhard Richter and, like The Lives of Others, focuses on the tension between an artist and the changing political landscape around him.”
An insider calls Work Without Author “impressive and highly personal, and warrants its long running time. One of the best German screenplays I’ve ever read, super ambitious and a more than worthy follow up to The Lives of Others, covering 30 years of German history beginning in World War II and finishing in the mid to late 60s, a period rarely covered in German cinema. It’s basically about a painter finding his voice.”
Promo footage was screened for buyers during the 2017 Cannes Film festival, and the movie was acquired for the U.S. shortly thereafter.
