Sunday, May 20, 2012
4:00 AM
2435 North Quad
GERMAN FILM INSTITUTE <br>The Cinema of Crisis: German Film 1928-1936
Directed and written by Luis Trenker. With Luis Trenker, Viktoria von Ballasko, Werner Kunig and Karli Zwingmann. Partially set and filmed in the United States, Der Kaiser von Kalifornien is the story of Johann Augustus Suter (aka John Sutter), the Swiss printer who came to California and set off the California Gold Rush of 1848 after finding gold on his land. Once news of this find gets out, hordes of prospectors arrive and ruin Suter’s land — actions that the film suggests were the result of semi-official action on the part of the United States government. Winner of the 1936 Mussolini Cup at the Venice film festival, the film was banned by the Western Allies at the end of the war because of its apparent anti-American sentiment.[Sources: germanwarfilms.com, thethirdreichscelluloidwar.com]
DVD w/English Subtitles, 95 min
German Film Institute pages
