In Times of Fading Light

Panorama

""A superb Ganz, solemn and impish in turns""

Screen Daily
  • Archive - Festival 33
  • Director: Matti Geschonneck
  • Germany 2017
  • 100 minutes
  • German, Russian
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

In a handsome suburban house in East Berlin, shortly before the fall of the Wall, family, friends and party officials gather to pay effusive tribute on the 90th birthday of Wilhelm Powileit (Bruno Ganz), a veteran Communist hero. Behind the scenes, everybody but the old man suspects that East Germany is cracking up, and with it their place at the top of the crumbling heap.

Bruno Ganz is superb in this expertly crafted and emotionally stirring remembrance of things past, based on the best-selling novel by Eugen Ruge.

Filmography: Boxhagener Platz  (2010), Möbius (1993).


  • Director Matti Geschonneck
  • Production Oliver Berben, Sarah Kirkegaard
  • Script Wolfgang Kohlhaase. Based on the novel by Eugen Ruge
  • Cinematography Hannes Hubach
  • Editing Dirk Grau
  • Festivals Berlinale
  • Actors Bruno Ganz, Sylvester Groth, Hildegard Schmahl, Evgenia Dodina
  • Source Beta Cinema, Munich