Film Criticism in Germany Today: A Report on Practice

As traditional media in Germany have lost their relevance in the digital age, so has the perpetually embattled authority of film criticism diminished. The article addresses current debates about the state of criticism while critics are confronting the collapse of the media having traditionally defined their work. What does it mean that writing on film is supposed to function as the “taste tester for cultural gastronomy” (Wolfram Schütte)? Do social media marginalize critical expertise? How does film criticism work under the omen of changing concepts of the public sphere? The article discusses the prospects of film criticism “at a time when the architectonic, mythic, and social unity of film is no longer self-evident and has ceased to function hegemonically” (Georg Seeßlen). What does it mean that “writing about the audiovisual must change” and young film critics open up spaces to win back film criticism as a counterbalance to market-driven film policies?