Is there anybody on this list who has something to >offer about one or more of the films and/or their directors? The films >are as follows: >1)We can do otherwise --dir. Detlev Buck >2)The Wismut--dir. Volker Koepp >3)Waller's Last Round-dir. Christian Wagner >4)The Summer of the Falcon--dir. Arend Aghte >5)Mailna--dir. Werner Schroter All of these mentioned films are more or less recent German productions, and seem to comprise a selection of diverse strands of new (or post-) New German Cinema. All of them have received fairly good critical attention domestically. The most well-known and established name among the directors is Werner Schroeter who is a veteran of New German Cinema. During the 1970s and 1980s he was at the forefront of German art and avantgarde cinema, and has also directed operas on stage. 'Malina' is a highly stylised and tense psychological drama about a disintegrating relationship, and is based on a novel by Austrian author/poet Ingeborg Bachmann. As far as I can remember the film was given a number of national and international awards. In stark contrast 'We can do otherwise' is a whimsical comedy about two half-wit s from North Germany traveling to the East in the aftermath of unification and joining forces with a deserted Soviet soldier in fighting backwood thugs. The film is a pastiche of several genres (road movie, Spaghetti Western, Laurel and Hardy) though part of the humour may depend on the knowledge of regional differences or dialects. Buck's films are very popular in Germany and enjoy something of a cult following. I haven't seen the other films personally, but I know that they were highly regarded at the time of their release. How you define the quality of these films is of course a matter of taste, but as an overview of recent German film culture,this package seems to me reasonably well put together. Tim Bergfelder School of Modern Languages University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ UK ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]