The Vintagent Trailers: A preview of our favorite feature films out there.

THE GLORY OF LIFE (2024)

Run Time: 1:38:00
Producer: Tempest Film, Lotus Film, Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF)
Director: Judith Kaufmann, Georg Maas
Writer: Georg Maas, Michael Gutmann, Michael Kumpfmüller
Key Cast: Henriette Confurius, Sabin Tambrea, Manuel Rubey

FILM MAKERS

“…I ride my motorbike a lot, I bathe a lot, I lie naked in the grass by the pond for a long time. I’m in the park until midnight with a girl I’m in love with in a complicated manner…” – Franz Kafka to Max Brod, 1907

Kafka rode a motorcycle? His letters allude to a love of motorcycling, though no details or photographs remain. But where history ends, fiction thrives. In the novel, ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding (1996) and the subsequent film of the same name, the obscure fact becomes the title of a manuscript that passes through the publishing house where Bridget Jones works. “Will whoever has thoughtlessly removed the edited script of KAFKA’S MOTORBIKE from my desk PLEASE have the decency to return it immediately.” The contents of the book are not revealed, but must be compelling as Jones is invited later that year to a “glittering literary launch of ‘Kafka’s Motorbike’. Following the film’s success, fans picked up where the book and film left off and fact turned fiction became lore. Google “Kafka’s Motorbike” and you’ll discover that it is “the greatest book of all time”.

“Franz Kafka: novelist, insurance broker…motorcyclist? Marking the centenary of the writer’s death, Ivan Margolius uncovers some of his little-known connections to the world of motoring.” – The Automobile

Now, one hundred years after Kafka’s death, Ivan Margolius confirms In his article ‘Kafka’s Motorcycle‘ published in the January 2025 issue of ‘The Automobile’, that Kafka did indeed ride for leisure and encouraged others to do the same, but that the connection went deeper. In the article, Margolius explores Kafka’s work in the burgeoning insurance industry where having studied as a lawyer, he was employed by day to support his writing. Kafka’s work there, says Margolius, directly “contributed to the establishment of motor insurance in Austro-Hungary”, an assignment that he seems to have sought out and embraced. The article is fascinating and well worth the UK postage.

SUMMARY

The last year in Franz Kafka’s life and its surprising love story.

In this emotional, elegantly realized romantic historical drama, filmmakers Georg Maas and Judith Kaufmann sensitively sketch the last year in the life of novelist Franz Kafka and the love he experiences with Dora Diamant, a Polish Jewish woman he meets on holiday at the Baltic Sea. Stricken by tuberculosis, the 40-year-old Czech writer is suddenly facing the unthinkable—happiness—at the moment that his health is most dramatically failing him. After a mutual instantaneous attraction, the two move in together in Berlin, but when he must relocate to a sanatorium in Austria, Dora makes the decision to join him, bringing joy to his final days. Starring Henriette Confurius and Sabin Tambrea as the tragic lovers, The Glory of Life, adapted from an acclaimed book by German writer Michael Kumpfmüller by the same name, takes an uplifting approach to its material, telling its story with dignity, humor, and poignant joy.

In NYC? The Film screens tomorrow, Feb 27th at Lincoln Center as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival. buy Tickets HERE.

RELATED MEDIA

Read The Glory of Life, by Michael Kumpfmüller

Read Franz Kafka!


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