'Tin Drum' director Schloendorff returns to Cannes with film on Germany's turbulent past

German filmmaker Volker Schloendorff said the Cannes Film Festival shows how cinema continues to evolve, as he returned to the Croisette with a new film rooted in Germany's turbulent past nearly 50 years since "The Tin Drum" won the top prize.

"The festival proves every time that film still exists, that it continues to evolve, that it is far, far more diverse than what we're usually offered," the 87-year-old director told Reuters.

He added that the biggest change is that he does not recognise a single name: "I used to know the directors of all the films in competition."

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Schloendorff has become known for his literary adaptations, including "The Tin Drum," an adaptation of a Guenter Grass novel that won both Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1979 and the Academy Award for best foreign-language film.

Other notable works include "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum," co-directed with Margarethe von Trotta, as well as international projects such as "Death of a Salesman" and "The Handmaid's Tale."

MEMORIES OF A TURBULENT CENTURY

His latest work, "Visitation," which premiered out of competition on Saturday, draws on the writing of German author Jenny Erpenbeck and weaves together personal and collective memory rather than offering a conventional historical account.

"Although it's a film about German history, it's not presented like a history lesson," he told Reuters.

"It consists of memories, especially the author's own memories," which give it an impressionistic quality, he said.

The film, starring Lars Eidinger, Martina Gedeck and Susanne Wolff, traces the political upheaval that influences the lives of several families who return to the same lake house outside Berlin.

"You realise that if you lived in Germany in that century, you couldn't take a single breath without inhaling political tension," Schloendorff said.

For Schloendorff, the subject matter is also deeply personal. "The century it depicts is almost exactly what I experienced," he said.

Drawing on family memories, he recreated scenes from the 1930s based on photographs belonging to his mother.

"They are on the beach, playing games, splashing in the water," he said. "And you don't know - did they realise that 30 kilometres away in Berlin, the Nazis were holding their massive parades?"

-Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Chiara Rodriquez/Reuters