Few directors boast the consistent excellence of German auteur Christian Petzold.
The puckish filmmaker got on Zoom from New York to unwind some of the surprises in Berlin’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner “Afire,” his tenth feature and third to star Paula Beer.It started out being called “The Lucky Ones.” “I love this title,” he told IndieWire during a recent interview.
“But it was forbidden, because there was a wave of copyright problems.” When he came up with “The Red Sky,” referring to the film’s wildfire encroaching on his trio of Baltic Sea vacationers, “This was also forbidden for use.
They said the word ‘afire’ and I said, ‘it sounds good.’”Petzold was working on adapting a dystopian novel during the pandemic, but when he contracted Covid, he put it aside.
“To erase-delete, to delete it out of my mind, this was the hard work on ‘Afire,…
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