Event

People On Sunday

Years before they became major players in Hollywood, a group of young German filmmakersincluding eventual noir masters Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer and future Oscar winners Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemannworked together on the once-in-a-lifetime collaboration People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag). This effervescent, sunlit silent, about a handful of city dwellers (a charming cast of nonprofessionals) enjoying a weekend outing, offers a rare glimpse of Weimar-era Berlin. A unique hybrid of documentary and fictional storytelling, People on Sunday was both an experiment and a mainstream hit that would influence generations of film artists around the world.

"The mark of a professional is reliability; the talented amateur delivers wonders as happy accidents but lacks the technique to be malleable or, for that matter, predictable. An amateur is a force of nature, which is why a satisfying performance by an amateur is overwhelming and awe-inspiring, as seen in the 1930 silent film People on Sunday." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"A breezy, comic, yet documentary-inflected narrative about a group of Berliners on a weekend outing. In its use of non-actors, in its casual approach to storytelling, in its sensual directness, and its almost anthropological take on its time and urban setting, People on Sunday is seen today by scholars as a forerunner of both Italian neorealism and the French New Wave." Sundance Now