The best Götz Otto’s movies of 2020

When 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder storms the stage of a small, progressive theatre in Munich 1967, and seizes the production without further ado, nobody suspects this brazen young rebel to become one of the most important post-war German filmmakers. Despite early setbacks, many of his films breakout at the most renowned films festivals and polarise audience, critics and filmmakers alike. His radical views and self-exploitation, as well as his longing for love, have made him one of the most fascinating film directors of this time.

This German musical drama – German if we speak about the production country, and international when it comes to its essence – stars Peter Simonischek, the incredible mature actor who played the lead in Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, which became one of the most notable premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. His character in Crescendo resembles the one he played in Ade’s film, and if in the latter he portrayed a wonderful father to his daughter, the former features him as a father to the entire symphonic orchestra assembled from young Israeli-Palestinian musicians. The conductor tries to turn this potentially volatile ensemble into a professional unit, guided by his own principles of an artistic director – but that doesn’t work – and he has to engage his human feelings towards those young ‘participants’ of someone else’s war. In the end, music – the eternal art – will help them make peace.