Solo Sunny
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''Solo Sunny'' is a 1980 East German
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by Konrad Wolf and Wolfgang Kohlhaase. It was entered into the
30th Berlin International Film Festival The 30th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 18–29 February 1980. The Golden Bear was jointly awarded to '' Heartland'', directed by Richard Pearce, and '' Palermo or Wolfsburg'', directed by Werner Schroeter. The retros ...
, where Renate Krößner won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. ''Solo Sunny'' was the last completed film directed by Konrad Wolf.


Plot

Ingrid "Sunny" Sommer is a singer for an East German band, called the Tornadoes, whose audience is usually senior citizens. For Sunny, performing as a solo pop singer is her dream but singing the same songs over and over to a small crowd has not gotten her there yet. When the saxophone player of the band is injured, the musician and philosopher Ralph steps in to substitute for him. Sunny falls for Ralph's saxophone skills, and soon they become lovers. Sunny asks Ralph to write her a song, and eventually he agrees. After walking off the stage before a performance, Sunny is soon replaced in the band by a new girl. Sunny turns to Ralph for comfort and finds him cheating on her. Finally Sunny has a chance to sing solo on stage with the song Ralph wrote for her, but she does not feel the love that she desires from the audience and gives up. After mixing sleeping pills and alcohol Sunny ends up in a hospital where she stays for rehabilitation. Once Sunny gets back on her feet she goes back to her old factory job, but she quits shortly after starting. The film ends with Sunny being accepted as a singer for another band with a sound different from the Tornadoes.


Cast

* Renate Krößner as Sunny * Alexander Lang as Ralph * Dieter Montag as Harry * Heide Kipp as Christine * Klaus Brasch as Norbert * Hansjürgen Hürrig as Hubert * as Benno * Olaf Mierau as Udo * Ursula Braun as Frau Pfeiffer * Regine Doreen as Monika * Klaus Händel as Bernd * Rolf Pfannenstein as Ernesto * as Detlev * Fred Düren as Doktor * Ulrich Anschütz as Grafiker


Production

Wolfgang Kohlhaase, East Germany's most important screenwriter, wrote the screenplay for ''Solo Sunny'' and was made co-director of the film. The inspiration for this film was a German singer named Sanije Torka who was born of eastern European immigrant parents. Jutta Voigt, a German journalist who interviewed Torka and had connections to Kohlhaase, was a consultant for the film. The information used for the film drew on an interview Voigt had done with the singer in 1976 that was never published because her lifestyle did not fit East German socialist views.


Reception

Although ''Solo Sunny'' was a film in which the East German socialist ideals were sometimes blatantly disregarded, it was not banned or censored by
DEFA DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PR ...
, the state-owned film studio. The film was based on a protagonist who was independent and who longed to succeed as a solo artist, which promoted individuality over the collective group. Audiences from East Germany and West Germany alike saw this and revered the character Sunny as a person that they felt exemplified who they wanted to be. In East Germany the showing of ''Solo Sunny'' resulted in sold-out seats with over a million viewers during the span of 19 weeks when it ran in the
Kino International The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the Berlin Wall#The Fall, fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. T ...
theater in East Berlin. Young people of the GDR even copied Sunny's fashion following the release of the film.


Awards

Within the year that the film was released it had won a total of 13 awards and one nomination from various film festivals. From the
Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...
the film won the
FIPRESCI The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for ''Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique'') is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the wor ...
Critics' Prize, the Reader Jury of the "Berliner Morgenpost", the Silver Bear and a nomination for the
Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...
. ''Solo Sunny'' also won the Golden Plaque for Best Script from the
Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...
. At the Eberswalde Film Festival it won many of categories including Competition, Best Director, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Film Score, Best Editing and Best Art Director.


See also

* Film censorship in East Germany *
30th Berlin International Film Festival The 30th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 18–29 February 1980. The Golden Bear was jointly awarded to '' Heartland'', directed by Richard Pearce, and '' Palermo or Wolfsburg'', directed by Werner Schroeter. The retros ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solo Sunny 1980 films 1980 drama films 1980s musical drama films German musical drama films German independent films East German films 1980s German-language films Films set in Berlin Films directed by Konrad Wolf Films directed by Wolfgang Kohlhaase Babelsberg Studio films Films about singers 1980s German films German-language musical drama films German-language independent films 1980 musical films