»ifs-Begegnung« Edimotion mit »Eins, zwei, drei« und Editor Fritz Busse

"ifs Encounter" Edimotion with "One, two, three" and editor Fritz Busse

Wednesday, December 11, 2024 | 7 pm

Free admission

Filmforum NRW | Cinema at the Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr. 1 | 50667 Cologne
On the big screen:

"One, two, three"
(USA 1961, Director: Billy Wilder, Editing: Daniel Mandell, 108 min.) Feature film, with James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, Liselotte Pulver and others.

Followed by a film discussion with editor Fritz Busse, moderated by Kyra Scheurer, Artistic Director Edimotion

Berlin 1961, shortly before the Wall was built: C.R. MacNamara, director of Coca-Cola sales in West Berlin, hopes to make a career move to London - and in future he wants to sell behind the Iron Curtain. His boss, however, does not want to do business with the communists, so instead MacNamara is supposed to look after his daughter Scarlett during her stay in Berlin. At first everything seems to be going peacefully, but the fun-loving Scarlett does not spend her nights at the MacNamaras' house. She disappears just as her parents announce their visit and reappears newly married to the young communist Otto Ludwig Piffl from East Berlin. In order not to lose his job, MacNamara instigates various intrigues to annul the marriage and ultimately tries to turn Piffl into a befittingly capitalist son-in-law.

Billy Wilder's fast-paced screwball comedy set against the backdrop of the East-West conflict only became a cult classic about the Cold War with its second theatrical release in the 1980s - the construction of the Berlin Wall not only took the film team by surprise, but also turned laughter about the political background into a political issue when the film was released. Despite its qualities and despite its famous makers, the film, which is rich in quotations and allusions, was initially only sparsely nominated for Oscars and Golden Globes in the USA, and box office success failed to materialize.

For editor Daniel Mandell, who had been successfully editing films since 1924, "One, Two, Three" was his third collaboration with Billy Wilder: He had been nominated for an Oscar for the latter's "Witness for the Prosecution" and won his third Oscar overall for editing "The Apartment". Mandell worked exclusively with Wilder until his retirement in 1966, making three more films together.

Fritz Busse is the editor of successful and multi-award-winning cinema documentaries, feature films and series alike and was nominated several times for the German Camera Award ("Am Ende des Tunnels", "Die Luftbrücke") for his editing work. His most recent work with comedy has been documentary: in 2023, he edited the documentary on Loriot's 100th birthday, followed in 2024 by "Hape Kerkeling - Total normal", which recently premiered at the Cologne Film Festival.

An event by Edimotion - Festival for Film Editing and Montage Art in cooperation with the ifs International Film School Cologne, as part of the Filmforum NRW e.V. With the kind support of the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne.