Transit

Director: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany, France

2018 | 101 min. | German
Subtitles: English
FSK 12

Cast_ Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese Screenplay_ Christian Petzold Camera_ Hans Fromm bvk Producer_ Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber Rights_ Piffl Medien

German emigration in the present: Christian Petzold's unconventional, captivatingly topical Seghers adaptation.

Before Undine, which won an award at this year's Berlinale, there was Transit. It’s the first time that Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski act for Schiller Award-winner Christian Petzold.

Georg is fleeing to Mexico. Marie is waiting for her husband to return from Paris. The two meet in Marseille. What Marie doesn’t suspect: Georg knows her husband died and has stolen his identity in order to obtain the transit visas he urgently needs. As the German army moves ever closer, a fateful relationship develops between these two lonely souls.

Petzold adapts Anna Seghers' novel of the same name in an almost Brechtian manner and relocates the characters’ flight from the Nazis into the present. The narrator’s (Matthias Brandt) subjective voice-over sets Transit apart from the rest of Petzold's oeuvre. A masterpiece of contemporary cinema, also thanks to Bettina Böhler's fluid editing!

Director

Christian Petzold enrolled at the DFFB after studying German and theatre studies. His professors included Harun Farocki, who became his co-scriptwriter. Petzold’s films have screened in the competitions of major festivals. With Barbara he won the Silver Bear. He is also a three-time winner of the Adolf-Grimme-Preis winner and has won the German Film Critics' Prize five times. He is considered the most important representative of the Berlin School.

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