Writer/director Maren Ade’s epic comedy about a prankster dad’s campaign to connect with his mortified workaholic daughter was the hands-down audience favourite at Cannes, and universally tipped to win. Assuming the persona of a clownish ‘life coach’, the eponymous anti-hero lays siege to the corporate lifestyle.

"Trust in the creative impulse informs every aspect of the film, from Ade’s dazzling script which has just enough of a classical comedic structure to support two hours and 42 minutes of surprises big and small, to her direction, which is designed to liberate the actors as much as possible while the camera rolls, to the performances (Simonischek and Hüller seem to be as amazed as we are by the things their characters lead them to do)…

The last 45 minutes contains four set pieces that take a film that is already great to a higher (say, The Rules of the Game) level, and the less you know about them in advance the better. Let’s just say they involve a karaoke performance, nudity, a very hairy embrace, and finally, a from-the-heart statement about how we could and should live our lives, which in almost any other film would seem like treacle, but here is thoroughly earned and provokes the tears that lay beneath the laughter all along." — Amy Taubin, Film Comment

Toni Erdmann

Germany/Austria 2016 
162 mins
DCP
In German and English, with English subtitles

Director/Screenplay: Maren Ade

Producer: Janine Jackowski, Maren Ade, Jonas Dornbach

Photography: Patrick Orth

Editor: Heike Parplies

Production designer: Silke Fischer

Costume designer: Gitti Fuchs

With: Peter Sinonischek (Winfried/Toni Erdmann), Sandra Hüller (Ines), Michael Wittenborn (Henneberg), Thomas Loibl (Gerald), Trystan Pütter (Tim), Hadewych Minis (Tatjana), Lucy Russell (Steph), Ingrid Bisu (Anca), Vlad Ivanov (Illiescu), Victoria Corciaş (Flavia)

Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2016

For tickets and details about films at other venues, please visit the New Zealand International Film Festival website.