MoMA celebrates German cinema

'Germany 09' to open Kino! At Thirty

By ED MEZA

BERLIN — "Germany 09," a compilation pic comprised of 13 shorts by Germany's leading filmmakers, kicks off this month's contemporary German film exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

This year's event, Kino! At Thirty: New Cinema from Germany, marks three decades of celebrating contemporary German film at the MoMA.

The exhibition, which runs April 22-30 at the Roy and Niuta Titus theaters, will present eight titles, including New German Cinema classics from the 1970s such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Merchant of Four Seasons," "The Balance of Happiness," by Margarethe von Trotta, and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek," as well as a selection from the past year: Ulla Wagner's World War II-era love story "The Invention of Currywurst," "Christian Schwochow's family drama-cum-mystery "November Child" and Christian Klandt's "Weltstadt," about two teenage boys who commit a heinous crime in a small town.

Providing a bridge between the two cinematic eras is Laurens Straub and Dominik Wessely's 2008 documentary "Reverse Shot — Rebellion of the Filmmaker," about the Filmverlag de Autoren, the founding organization of the New German Cinema movement.