Toni Erdmann

When Ines, a businesswoman working for a large German company based in Bucharest, sees her father Winfried arrive unannounced, she does not hide her exasperation. Her perfectly organised life cannot tolerate the slightest disruption, and she is ashamed of her practical joker of a dad. But when he asks her ‘Are you happy?’, her inability to answer marks the beginning of a phenomenal upheaval. Winfried shows up at her workplace, disguised as the flashy Toni Erdmann, a “life coach” with a particular taste for outrageous humour. He wants to make sure she is still able to smile.

Toni Erdmann was infamously ignored by the Cannes film festival’s jury in 2016, when it had in fact dominated the world’s prime film event, winning over everyone’s heart and with audiences united as one single organism that ideally responded to all of the film’s twists and turns. It was, clearly, the masterwork that confirmed Maren Ade as the flagbearer of a very talented generation of German filmmakers, not only smart but never losing sight of the pleasures that made them film lovers themselves. Of the simple things that make life, and a movie scene, fun, moving and beautiful.

Starring the great Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall).

This screening is supported by the Goethe-Institut Irland.