DIRECTOR: Christian Petzold
PRODUCERS: Antonin Dedet, Florian Koerner von Gustorf
PRODUCTION CO: Schramm Film
SCREENPLAY: Christian Petzold, based on the novel by Anna Seghers
PHOTOGRAPHY: Hans Fromm
EDITOR: Bettina Böhler
MUSIC: Stefan Will
WITH: Franz Rogowski (Georg), Paula Beer (Marie Weidel), Godehard Giese (Richard), Lilien Batman (Driss), Maryam Zaree (Melissa), Barbara Auer (Woman with the two dogs), Matthias Brandt (Barman/narrator), Ronald Kukulies (Heinz), Antoine Oppenheim (George Binnet), Sebastian Hülk (Paul), Emilie de Preissac (Maid at Herr Weidel's place), Justus von Dohnányi (Conductor), Alex Brendemühl (Mexican consul), Trystan Pütter (American consul)

​FESTIVALS: Berlin

REVIEWS

“Patient, probing, and poetic in both its affairs of the heart and its worries of the soul… a film of intricately layered artistry.” – Sarah Ward, Goethe-Institut

“In Petzold’s adaptation [of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel]… a Jewish audio technician named Georg (Franz Rogowski) assumes the identity of a recently deceased communist author after accepting a job to deliver his personal effects to the Mexican Consulate in Marseille. Though still [referencing] World War II, Transit draws plain but potent parallels with the ongoing European refugee crises, not to mention the more unsettling rise of neo-Nazism. Armed with the dead author’s transit papers, Georg finds his escape plan getting complicated when he crosses paths (and slowly falls in love) with his surrogate’s widowed wife (Paula Beer, looking uncannily like the director’s longtime muse Nina Hoss), whose mysterious dealings lead him further into a web of false identities and unrequited romance. Shooting with customary economy, Petzold takes full advantage of the story’s genre machinations, chiseling the melodramatic gestures that punctuated his previous triumph, Phoenix, into a taut thriller whose incongruous narrative elements only accentuate the film’s timelessly tragic arc.”

​– Jordan Cronk, Film Comment

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS*

Hamilton     
Monday, 2 May, 8.00pm

Wellington
Monday, 9 May, 6.15pm

Auckland     
Monday, 16 May, 6:15pm 

Canterbury
Monday, 23 May, 7.00pm

Dunedin     
Wednesday, 1 June, 7:30pm

Nelson
Tuesday, 7 June, 6.00pm

Tauranga
Thursday, 16 June, 6.30pm

​Queenstown
​Tuesday, 28 June, 8.15pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 6 July, 6.00pm

​Whanganui     
Monday, 18 July, 7:00pm

​*Non-members welcome by donation (notes only please)​
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German Cinema selection presented in
co-operation with the Goethe-Institut