The Close-up

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with director Christian Petzold about his new film, Afire, now playing in our theaters courtesy of Janus and Sideshow Films. Set against the backdrop of a seaside town threatened by encroaching wildfires, Christian Petzold’s latest is a breezy, often funny, yet emotionally layered melodrama of creative and romantic insecurities along the German Riviera. The film centers around Leon, a disgruntled novelist struggling to finish his manuscript while traveling with his photographer friend to a vacation home near the Baltic Sea, where they’re met by an unexpected third house guest, Nadja (Paula Beer;, whose presence distracts Leon as much as it cringingly exposes his self-obsessed bubble. Full of sunkissed tints and nocturnal blues, Afire finds the director operating with a deceptively light touch, but what starts as a hangout comedy gradually opens up into something entirely more surprising and psychologically complex. The film is the winner of the Silver Bear Gr