CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY, the doc­u­men­tary and grad­u­a­tion film by Nico­la Alice Hens, will be released in cin­e­mas nation­wide on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020. To accom­pa­ny its the­atri­cal release, the direc­tor will per­son­al­ly present the film in select­ed cities. The film tells the hith­er­to lit­tle-known sto­ry of the French Jew Marthe Cohn alias Chichinette. Dur­ing the chaos of war, Cohn decid­ed to risk her life to work as an allied spy in Nazi Ger­many. Today, at the age of 100, she trav­els the world shar­ing her sto­ry with the younger gen­er­a­tions.

The film’s release was planned for March 19, 2020, but a nation­wide lock­down in Ger­many occurred only days before its sched­uled start. Now the time has come and CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY is final­ly com­ing to cin­e­mas.

CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY cel­e­brat­ed its Ger­man pre­miere at the Hofer Film­tage 2019.

Film Dis­cus­sions

FILM DISCUSSION on 12.09.2020 BERLIN KLICK Kino (with­in the Jew­ish Film Fes­ti­val Berlin & Bran­den­burg) – 6 pm – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

FILM DISCUSSION on 17.09.2020 WEIMAR Lichthaus cin­e­ma – 7 pm – Guest: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens

FILM DISCUSSION on 18.09.2020 LEIPZIG Ciné­math­èque Leipzig – 7 pm – Guest: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens

FILM DISCUSSION on 19.09.2020 BERLIN Cen­tral – time TBA – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

FILM DISCUSSION on 19.09.2020 BERLIN Moviemen­to – time TBA – Guests: direc­tor Nico­la A. Hens and pro­duc­er Amos Geva

Venues

Berlin, Bre­men, Dort­mund, Dres­den, Essen, Frank­furt, Freiburg, Hal­ber­stadt, Ham­burg, Hanover, Karl­sruhe, Leipzig, Munich, Mün­ster, Nurem­berg, Pots­dam, Salzgit­ter, Stuttgart, Tübin­gen, Ulm, Wies­baden, Würzburg, and more.

An updat­ed list of film dis­cus­sions and venues can be found on the web­site of miss­ing­FILMs.

About the film

At the age of 100, Marthe Cohn tours the world like a rock star. The demu­ni­tive white-haired woman pos­sess­es humour, flair, and lots of ener­gy. We quick­ly under­stand why she was once nick­named “Chichinette” (lit­tle pain in the neck). Her speech­es are enter­tain­ing and pep­pered with punch lines. With wit and charm Marthe cap­ti­vates her audi­ence with her incred­i­ble life sto­ry: Marthe Hoff­nung, a French Jew from Metz, who lost her fiancé and her sis­ter in the war, decid­ed in 1945 to risk her life to spy for the Allies in Nazi Ger­many and to fight for the war to come to an end. Her mis­sion was suc­cess­ful, but for six­ty years after the war she remained silent about her hero­ic deeds.

An Amos Geva film pro­duc­tion in co-pro­duc­tion with Merovee Films, the DFFB, and the RBB.

CHICHINETTE – THE ACCIDENTAL SPY tells the impres­sive sto­ry of Cohn’s life in atmos­pher­ic, part­ly ani­mat­ed images.

Source: miss­ing­FILMs

After the pan­dem­ic thwart­ed the Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (Berli­nale) in April, we are delight­ed that the 16th edi­tion of achtung Berlin – new berlin film award film will soon be upon us.

Tak­ing place from 16–20 Sep­tem­ber, this edi­tion will fea­ture few­er films than usu­al, but they will all be screened in the best cul­tur­al meet­ing place for film­mak­ers and film lovers—the cin­e­ma!

The DFFB will be present at the fes­ti­val, which is the most impor­tant event for show­cas­ing film­mak­ing from Berlin and Bran­den­burg. This year’s pro­gramme includes the fol­low­ing con­tri­bu­tions from the DFFB:

1986 (R/​B: Lothar Her­zog, K: Philipp Baben der Erde, P: Romana Janik)

DAS WARTEN (R/​B: Lasse Hold­hus, K: Alexan­der Brack, P: Lisa Rol­ing)

DER TAG X (R: Katha­ri­na Riv­ilis, B: Katha­ri­na Riv­ilis, Samuel Chalela Puc­ci­ni, K: Giu­lia Schel­has, P: Cecil­ia Trautvet­ter)

FREISCHWIMMER (R: Gaya von Schwarze, B: Mirko Rachor, Gaya von Schwarze, Josephine Oleak, K: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Ibrahim-Utku Erdo­gan, Leonie Schäfer)

IN DEN BINSEN (R: Clara Zoe My-Linh von Arn­im, B: Andreas Kou­ba, K: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Elis­a­beth Köller)

JIYAN (R/​B: Sühey­la Schwenk, K: Flo­ri­an Wurz­er, P: Sara Fazi­lat, Rox­ana Richters)

LAND OF GLORY (R: Bor­bála Nagy, B: Bor­bála Nagy, Judit Anna Bán­házi, K: Moritz Friese, P: Mar­gari­ta Amine­va)

REVOLVO (R/​B: Fran­cy Fab­ritz, K: Anto­nia Lange, P: Sara Fazi­lat)

SEBASTIAN SPRINGT ÜBER GELÄNDER (R/​B: Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa, K: Albrecht von Grün­hagen, P: Jörg Daniel, Övünc Güvenisik, Simona Kos­to­va, Cey­lan Ata­man-Checa) und

TRÄUME VON RÄUMEN (R/​B: Matthias Lint­ner, K: Fran­cis­co Med­i­na, Matthias Lint­ner, Matil­da Mester, Car­los Andres Lopez, Christo­pher Aoun; P: Matthias Lint­ner, Eweli­na Rosińs­ka).

In addi­tion, the film FRITSCH´S PFUSCH will screen in the doc­u­men­tary com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion. The film fea­tures cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Paul Rohlfs and was pro­duced by Vic­tor Buza­l­ka (Direc­tor: Lisa Wagner/​KHM).

Two debut films of our gradutes can also be seen at the fes­ti­val:

GLITTER&DUST by Anna Koch and Julia Lemke and GIRAFFE by Anna Sofie Hart­mann.

 

For the full sched­ule, take a look at the pro­gramme book­let.

The 3rd Film­net­zw­erk Pitch takes place at the fes­ti­val on 18 Sep­tem­ber.

The Pitch is a show­case for film­mak­ers from Berlin. Dur­ing the Branchen­tag of the achtung berlin film fes­ti­val, a selec­tion of screen­writ­ers, direc­tors, and pro­duc­ers will present their long, short, and ser­i­al fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and ani­ma­tion projects to a pro­fes­sion­al audi­ence. The par­tic­i­pants will receive feed­back from pro­duc­tion, TV, and dis­tri­b­u­tion experts.

Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the pitch this year will occur under nec­es­sary hygiene mea­sures. The pitch offers the par­tic­i­pants the fol­low­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties: to receive feed­back on the projects’ con­tent and form, to exam­ine rel­e­vant pro­duc­tion and eval­u­a­tion strate­gies, and to gain part­ners for their project.

We wish every­one a suc­cess­ful fes­ti­val!