DIE BLECHTROMMEL DIRECTOR’S CUT / THE TIN DRUM DIRECTOR’S CUT

Oskar is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on.

FOLKER ŠLENDORF / VOLKER SCHLÖNDORFF

Volker Schlöndorff was born 1939 in Wiesbaden. In 1956 he traveled to France as part of a student exchange and remained in France where he received his Baccalauréat. In Paris he studied law and he met Louis Malle. He also worked as an assistant for Ludwig Berger, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville and Alain Resnais. 1963-1964 he wrote his first screenplay Der Junge Törless for which he received a scholarship that enabled him to realize the project. The film won several awards and is considered the first international success of the new German film. In 1969, Fodine Schlöndorff founded the production company Hallelujah-Film GmbH In 1975, Schlöndorff co-directed with Margarethe von Trotta the film The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. His breakthrough on the world stage comes with the film adaptation of Günter Grass's novel “Tin Drum”. Film The Tin Drum won the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.