Will an Oscar go to Charlottenburg on March 12?

By Isabel Pfannkuche and Michael Zöllner

Frank and his 25-strong team from the Charlottenburg company “Cine Chromatix” have dedicated themselves to post-production. They ensure perfect film scenes.

“Sometimes the situation at the location isn’t what we wanted,” he says to BZ. On one day of shooting, for example, the sun thawed the snow on the meadows in the background. “But the director wanted snow everywhere. We animated it using photos,” says Frank. That lasted a whole week.

Explosions and bomb hits were filmed far away from the actors, later superimposed over the scenes by Frank’s team.

The expert proudly: “When I saw the first images from the film, I realized that it was something special. It was shot in a beautiful, new, and modern way – simply different from what you usually see in German films.”

After six months of hard work, finally an Oscar? “It’s all totally weird,” says Frank. He and three other specialists are nominated in the “Visual Effects” category.

The Berliner wants to arrive for the awards ceremony in Hollywood on March 7th – it is his first visit to Los Angeles. Also present: his wife. After the premiere, he saw the film with her three times on Netflix.

“Before the Oscars, there’s a dinner with the other nominees to get to know each other,” says Frank. He had a tuxedo made especially for the ceremony: “In classic black,” he says.

It’s already clear where the trophy could end up. “We don’t have a real display case in the office yet, but we do have a self-made cabinet with a Plexiglas pane and a lamp,” says Frank.

“Nothing new in the west” (in English “All Quiet on the Western Front”) is already a sensational success for the Berlin director Edward Berger (53). And not just because of the nine nominations: so far, German films have “only” won the Oscar for the best non-English language film. And that has only happened three times so far: in 1980 with “The Tin Drum”, in 2003 with “Nowhere in Africa” and finally in 2007 with “The Lives of Others”.

No German film has ever won in the main category “Best Film”! In the case of the Berlin hit film that could do that now, not even the film funding has a finger in the pie. Although it spends 450 million euros every year on German productions, the big success usually does not come.

“Nothing New in the West” was therefore financed solely by Netflix. Cost point: around 20 million euros.

In addition to director Berger, other Berliners are involved in the war drama – including actors Daniel Brühl (44), Edin Hasanović (30), Devid Striesow (49) and Tobias Langhoff. (died on his 60th birthday in November).

BZ is keeping its fingers crossed that on March 12th it will say nine times (but at least once): “And the Oscar goes to … ‘All quiet on the western front’!”

“Nothing New in the West” has been nominated in these nine categories

► Best Movie

► Best Adapted Screenplay

► Best Camera

► Best Production Design

► Best makeup and hairstyles

► Best film music

► Best sound

► Best visual effects

► Best International Film

So far there have been 58 German Oscar winners. Including eight who got more than one. Lonely top: André Previn. Born in Berlin, he was awarded four times for the best film music – “Gigi”, “Porgy und Bess”, “Das Mädchen Irma la Douce”, “My Fair Lady”.

At the last award in 2022, two Germans won with the film “Dune”: Hans Zimmer for film music, Gerd Nefzer for visual effects.

Where can you see the Oscar nominee?

The film was only in cinemas for a short time. Reason: Netflix had only allowed a four-week exclusive cinema use before the film could be seen in the streaming offer. Parallel use is not worthwhile for cinemas.

Because of the Oscars, there are now a few cinema screenings: On Sunday, the Delphi Lux (11.45 a.m.) will show the original version with English subtitles. The German version will be shown at the Filmtheater am Friedrichshain on Sunday at 12.15 p.m. and on Monday at 3.30 p.m.

Nazi terror against the first Remarque film adaptation at Nollendorfplatz

Even the novel was a thorn in the side of the Nazis. They saw the film adaptation by US director Lewis Milestone as a “film of German defeat” and as “a threat to Germany’s reputation”.

The Berlin premiere on December 4, 1930 in the Mozart Hall on Nollendorfplatz, today Metropol, went off quietly. But Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels called on his henchmen to protest together.

Terror finally broke out in the cinema on December 5: the Nazis threatened, cursed and beat up. Stink bombs exploded and the cinema was flooded with white mice.

The performance was canceled and 1,500 Nazi sympathizers were already waiting outside. The terror intensified over the next few days.

Hanns Brodnitz, director of the Mozart Hall, remained steadfast and continued showing the film. In 1944, the Jewish cinema operator was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

A bestseller and lucky in love

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose real name was Erich Paul Remark, was born in Osnabrück. He processed his experiences in World War I as a recruit in “Nothing New in the West”.

Remarque was badly injured by shrapnel. He began writing while still in the hospital. But he didn’t have his breakthrough as a writer until a good ten years later.

After the war, Remarque earned his living as a teacher, organist and with the company newspaper of the tire manufacturer Continental. In 1925 he moved to Berlin, where he initially worked for a magazine. He offered his novel to two publishers, and Ullstein took it. On November 10, 1928, the preprint began in the “Vossische Zeitung”.

In 1931 Remarque bought a villa in Ticino. After success as a writer came luck in love: he married a dancer twice and had affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.