Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Will Germany Take Home The Gold Again?


I've been excited for this film for a long time since I first heard about it, and now, Die Welle (The Wave) has a trailer (partially in english) and is now starting to finally build up the buzz for Germany for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars!

Die Welle (The Wave) is based on the bestselling book The Wave by Todd Strasser (who went under the pen name of Morton Rhue) and the 1981 Emmy Award-winning Made For TV Movie The Wave (The book and the made-for-tv-movie are American by the way!).

Die Welle (The Wave) is clearly reminiscent of Germany's nazi past. It's about a high school teacher's attempt to demonstrate to his students what it's like to live under a dictatorship, and his experiment spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.



Die Welle (The Wave) won one of the top honors for Bester Spielfilm (or Best Film) at the German Film Awards (Germany's equivalent to the Oscars), since there are 3 winners at these awards for Best Film. Die Welle (The Wave) was tied with Kirschblüten - Hanami and Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven), which was Germany's submission last year for the Oscars, for Best Film.

But there was another accomplishment for Die Welle (The Wave)! One of the film's stars, Frederick Lau, won the Best Supporting Actor award!

And for the hell of it, to get a little taste of what the German Film Awards are like, here is the Youtube clip of Frederick Lau winning his award for Best Supporting Actor for Die Welle (The Wave):



Well, let's hope that Germany chooses Die Welle (The Wave) as their submission for the Oscars, because I am really excited for this movie, and plus, it has been getting great reviews in Germany as well as becoming very popular over there!


So you can view the international trailer here: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=23150, but you can view the German trailer here, and even though you probably have no idea what they are saying unless you speak German and can understand it, you can get a pretty good idea of what is going on:



For now, Die Welle (The Wave) will be premiering at theaters in the United Kingdom on September 19. As for now, there is no word yet on when it will be premiering in the United States.

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