FEATURE FILM

108 min

Germany, France, Serbia - 2023

AWARDS

Silver Bear for Best Screenplay Berlinale 2023

Ribera Del Duero – Award To The Best Director Angela Schanelec

Valladolid IFF 2023

Best Director Of Photography Award Ivan Marković

Valladolid IFF 2023

FESTIVALS

Toronto IFF 2023

The New York Film Festival 2023

BFI London Film Festival 2023 AFI Fest 2023

Istanbul IFF 2023

IndieLisboa IFF 2023

Tokyo IFF 2023

Busan IFF 2023

Taipei IFF 2023

Sydney IFF 2023

Jerusalem IFF 2023

Hong Kong IFF 2023

FICUNAM 2023

Reykjavik IFF 2023

New Horizons 2023

IFF Shanghai 2023

IFF Valdivia 2023

IFF Riga 2023

Cast: Aliocha Schneider, Agathe Bonitzer, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Argyris Xafis, Frida Tarana, Ninel Skrzypczyk, Miriam Jakob, Wolfgang Michael

Director: Angela Schanelec

Producer: Kirill Krasovski

Co-Producers: François d’Artemare, Vladimir Vidić, Nataša Damnjanović

Executive Producers: Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis

Production Companies: faktura film in co-production with WDR / arte, Les Films de l'Après-Midi, dart.film

in association with Heretic

Financial support

Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication (EKOME), German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), German Federal Film Board (FFA), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, The National Center for Film and Moving Images (CNC), Film Center Serbia, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia

Synopsis

Abandoned at birth in the Greek mountains on a stormy night, Jon is taken in and adopted, without having known his father or mother.

As a young man, he meets Iro, a warden in the prison where he is incarcerated after a deadly tragic accident. She seems to seek out his presence, takes care of him, records music for him. Jon’s eyesight begins to fail...

From then on, for every loss he suffers, he will gain something in return. Thus, in spite of going blind, he will live his life more fully than ever.

PRESS-KIT

WORLD SALES

Shellac

GERMAN DISTRIBUTOR

Grandfilm

A WOMAN IN MAKUENI by Daria Belova & Valeri Aluskina | Germany 2023 | 13’

FESTIVALS

*73. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin - Berlinale Shorts 2023

Cast: Peter Oluoko, Mary Wanjiku Wambua, Nancy Syombuak, Beatrice Nafula, Daniel Kitonga

Directors: Daria Belova & Valeri Aluskina

Producers: Kirill Krasovski, Daria Belova, Valeri Aluskina

Production Company: faktura film

Synopsis

Kenya, Africa. A man works in a quarry. His wife is imprisoned in Makueni women’s prison. When he arrives there from his village, he is not allowed to see her. An encounter with an unfamiliar woman helps him in a mystical way.

FEATURE FILM

DEU 2021

WORLD PREMIERE: BERLINALE 2021 / ENCOUNTERS

IFF Moscow (Int. Competition - * Special Jury Award)

IFF Rotterdam

Viennale

Mostra de São Paulo (Competition "New Filmmakers“)

Sevilla IFF (Competition "Las Nuevas Olas")

New Horizons IFF Wroclaw

IFF Molodist Kiew

CPH Pix Copenhagen

Bildrausch Filmfest Basel (Int. Competition)

Riga IFF (Int. Competition)

Ankara Film Festival

Scanorama IFF Vilnius

Filmfest Hamburg

Nürnberg Int. Human Rights Film Festival (Int. Competition)

New Holland Island IFF Sankt Petersburg

Semana de Cine Aleman, Mexico City / Guadalajara / Monterrey / San Luis Potosí

GoetheFEST Belgrad / Niš / Novi Sad

Goethe Institut Berlinale Special Zagreb / Split / Rijeka

Deutschsprachige Filmtage, Cinémathèque Luxembourg

Underdox München

Nordische Filmtage Lübeck

Cineteca Madrid

Screenplay: Julian Radlmaier

Director:  Julian Radlmaier

Producer:  Kirill Krasovski

Co-Producers: Michael Reuter, Niels Maier, Knut Maier, Stefan Laucher, Julia Mishkinene

Director of Photography: Markus Koob

Production Design: Reinhild Blaschke

Costume Design: Sara Wendt

Production Company: faktura film GmbH in co-production with WDR / arte, The Post Republic, Maier Bros., Ludwig Kameraverleih

World Sales: ARRI MEDIA INTL.

Distributor: Grandfilm (Germany)

Supported by BKM, DFFF, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Film - und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, nordmedia – Film- und Mediengesellschaft mbH

LOGLINE

A penniless Soviet refugee falls in love with a young, wealthy German vampiress spending the summer by the sea with her awkward assistant.

CAST

Alexandre Koberidze, Lilith Stangenberg, Alexander Herbst, Corinna Harfouch, Andreas Döhler, Daniel Hoesl, Mareike Beykirch, Kyung-Taek Lie

LANGUAGE

German, Russian

RELEASE YEAR

2021

PRESS REVIEWS

„Wundervoll ironisch und voll sanftem Humor.“ TV movie

„Groß und wunderbar.“ Die Zeit

„Strotzt vor Fabulierlust und erhellendem Humor, reflektiert aber auch auf hohem Niveau über die Möglichkeiten des Mediums.“ Jungle World

„Klingt verrückt und die Handlung hört sich sogar noch durchgeknallter an.“ Geek

„Es ist, als ob Rainer Werner Fassbinder spröde analytische Filmkunst auf Wes Anderson trifft: eine Welt voller skurriler Figuren, humorvoll und märchenhaft, zugleich aber mit realistischer und gesellschaftskritischer Anlage.“ Die Welt

„Erfreulich frisch, frech und innovativ.“ Ray Filmmagazin

„Vielleicht ist es gerade der Unernst von Radlmaiers Kino, der ins Schwarze trifft.“ Die Zeit

„Amüsant und erhellend.“ Filmfilter

„Eine Ode ans politische Filmemachen.“ taz

„Blutsauger ist ungeheuer eigenwillig als tragikomische Farce inszeniert, die so pointiert wie anregend daherkommt.“ Freitag

„Darum bezaubert das Gesamt­ergebnis: Die Welt­re­vo­lu­tion trifft Slapstick, der Vampir-Film die Albern­heit, der Intellekt die Komödie, und wenn Lilith Stan­gen­berg eine Szene mit Corinna Harfouch spielt, prallen Schau­spiel-Universen funken­s­prühend gegen­ein­ander.“ Artechock

„Mit bösem Witz und feiner Ironie übt Julian Radlmaier zugleich Kritik an Kapitalismus und salonlinkem Besserwissertum.“ epd FILM

„In der romantischen Tradition war der Vampir eine tragische Figur; Blutsauger dagegen beweist, dass er sich auch komisch deklinieren lässt“ perlentaucher

„Ein bisschen Marx, viel Klasse. Beweist nicht nur, wie weit man Ironie entwickeln kann, sondern auch, wie gut sich Theorie in Filmpraxis übersetzen lässt.“ Tip Berlin

„Blutsauger quillt über vor überbordender Spielfreude und phantasievollen Einfällen, Anachronismen und Anekdoten, ein artifizieller Parforceritt durch die deutsche und europäische Geistesgeschichte, zwischen Lehrstück und Loriot. Lustig.“ Berliner Morgenpost

„Die sehr pointiert formulierten Dialoge werden von allen mit großer Monotonie abgespult, wodurch ein ironieverstärkender Effekt entsteht, wie man ihn etwa auch aus den Filmen von Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) kennt.“ Freitag

„Es ist ein ebenso kluges wie fantasievolles Lehrstück über die tödliche Gefahr der Buchstabengläubigkeit, über die Bedrohlichkeit einer von aggressiven Wünschen getriebenen Geisteshaltung, die zwischen einem Bild und der Wirklichkeit keinen Unterschied mehr erkennt. Die Frage im Film ist nicht nur, ob es echte Vampire gibt, sondern welche Absicht mit einem solchen Glauben einhergeht.“ Die Welt

„Eine Komödie zum Treibenlassen und Genießen. Das Ganze besitzt auch keine Bekehrungsaspekte für den Marxismus. Es kokettiert damit und regt eher dazu an, sich überhaupt mit dieser Lehre genauer auseinanderzusetzen.“ Blickpunkt Film

„Ein vor allem verspielter Film, schillernd, einfallsreich und ein bisschen durcheinander. Radlmaier bricht und ironisiert seine Story immer wieder, und übt vor allem durch seine nonchalant-unverkrampfte Haltung recht deutliche Kritik an einem deutschen Kunst-Kino, das vor allem Angst vor Fehlern hat, und dem in all seinem Pragmatismus mehr und mehr die Ideen ausgehen.“ Rüdiger Suchsland - SWR

„Wann bekommt man sonst eine ungewöhnliche Ostsee-Romanze, verloren in den Zeiten, zwischen Dracula und Kapitalismuskritik geboten?“ Uncut

„Ein Must-see für jeden sozialistischen Lesekreis.“ Neues Deutschland

„Mit seiner dialektischen Fabel treibt Julian Radlmaier den zu seinem Markenzeichen gewordenen « ironischen Materialismus » auf die Spitze. Ideologie und Cinephilie sind die Zutaten einer formalistischen Komödie, die die marxsche Metapher vom Kapitalisten als Blutsauger wortwörtlich nimmt.“ RadioEins

„Ein ebenso souveräner wie vergnüglicher Film.“ Junge Welt

„Eine urkomische Mischung aus Marxismus, Liebesfilm und Fabulierlust.“ programmkino.de

„Eine wunderbar ironische, absurde Komödie.“ Szene Hamburg

„Blutsauger ist Diskurskino, ohne spröde oder larmoyant zu sein.“ Filmdienst

„Eine übermütige Farce“ Berliner Morgenpost

„Null Skepsis meinerseits gibt es angesichts des neuen Films von Julian Radlmaier, in dessen Fanclub ich seit Selbstkritik eines bürgerlichen Hundes bin. Hochstilisiert, ironisch distanziert, wohlfeil formuliert – und spielerisch und hochtheoretisch zugleich im Umgang mit kommunistischen Utopien oder den Schriften von Karl Marx. Die Blutsauger- Selbstbeschreibung lautet „eine marxistische Vampirkomödie“, und mehr sollte man, bevor man den Film sieht, am besten gar nicht wissen – außer, dass Regisseur Daniel Hoesl darin auch eine Rolle spielt.“ Pia Reiser radio fm4

by Stanislav Danylyshyn | Germany | United States | 2020 | 45'

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Hungarian with English subtitles

FESTIVALS

2020 IDFA, Netherlands (Competition for Student Documentary)

SYNOPSIS

In western Ukraine is located one of the largest Roma settlements in the country - the place is called Tábor. An isolated quarter of the city of Berehove, where live mostly Hungarian speaking Romani people. The film shows one of the days of the celebration of Easter, when the boys water the girls, receiving Easter eggs for this. After the end of the holiday many of them leave the settlement with their entire families and go to roam the country. The film reflects human being in a timeless dimension, brings closer archetypal images: mother, father, child. Depicts the plasticity of the movement of a man and nature in the space, which they are being a part of, creating chaos that contains a balance between different components like light and shadow.

CREW

director | producer STANISLAV DANYLYSHYN

cinematographer JESSE MAZUCH

editors VIKTOR HOFFMANN | STANISLAV DANYLYSHYN

sound designer HANNES MARGET

colorist EDMOND LACCON

co-producer OLGA GOISTER

production DFFB | CRYSTAL GOOSE

Self-criticism of a Bourgeois Dog

VOD STREAM

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bourgeoisdog

THEATRICAL RELEASE

AUSTRIA 27.04.2017 Filmgarten

GERMANY 08.06.2017 Grandfilm

RUSSIA 17.06.2017 Cineticle Films

UKRAINE 08.02.2018 KyivMusicFilm

MEXICO 16.02.2018 La Ola Cine

FESTIVALS

Rotterdam IFF, Netherlands (Bright Future Competition)

Berlinale, Germany (Perspektive Deutsches Kino)

FICUNAM, Mexico

Febiofest Prague, Czech Republic (New Europe)

Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt, Germany (Zukunft Deutscher Film)

GegenKino Leipzig, Germany

Fajr IFF Tehran, Iran

Crossing Europe Linz, Austria (Competition)

EMAF Osnabrück, Germany

FICIC Cosquín, Argentinien (Retrospective Julian Radlmaier)

Bildrausch Basel, Switzerland (Competition)

New Horizons Wroclaw, Poland (Films on Art)

Melbourne Internationales Filmfestival, Australia (International Europe)

Seville European Film Festival 

Umea Film Festival

Scanorama Vilnius

Festival do Rio

INDIE Film Festvial Sao Paulo

Riga IFF

Festival des Deutschen Films Ludwigshafen

FEATURE FILM

Director:  Julian Radlmaier
Producer:  Kirill Krasovski
DoP: Markus Koob
Production Company: faktura film in co-production with German Film and Television Academy DFFB and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg RBB

LOGLINE

A bourgeois dog and former filmmaker confesses how he became four-legged by failing in love, apple- picking and revolution. A political comedy with magic twists. 
 

SYNOPSIS

A bourgeois dog confesses how he was transformed from being a filmmaker to being four-legged: Unable to find financing for his film, JULIAN is forced to accept a job as a seasonal farmhand. At a party, however, he makes the young Canadian expat CAMILLE believe that he's going to do research for a communist fairy-tale film and offers her the leading part. To his great surprise, she decides to accompany him, sparking off Julian's lurking romantic fantasies.
Thus they arrive at the deceitfully idyllic scene of an exploitative apple plantation. While Julian finds the manual labour agonizing and fears the strange roommates in his humble container home, Camille enthusiastically plunges into the alleged research and makes friends with HONG and SANCHO, two credulous proletarians in pursuit of happiness. For Julian, it's getting more and more difficult to act the communist filmmaker. And what's more, a hot-tempered model worker with American dreams gets in his way, a mute monk with magical powers and a screw loose shows up, the owner of the plantation accidentally gets killed, and an attempted revolution ends up in confusion. At this moment, however, the sparrows in the trees come up with an unexpected plan... 

Supported by: Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB), nordmedia – Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH, German Films

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Selfcriticismofabourgeoisdog/

Technical Aspects:

Germany 2017, fiction feature, 99min, color, Shooting format: Arri Amira 2K, Screening copy: DCP, 24fps, Aspect ratio: 1,37:1, Sound format: 5.1, Original language: German, English, Subtitles : German, English 

DOWNLOADS

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

PRESSKIT ENGLISH

PRESSEMAPPE DEUTSCH

Director's Statement
Markus Nechleba and Julian Radlmaier talking about Self-criticism of a bourgeois dog

DOCUMENTARY

Director: Oleksandr Techynskyi

Producers: Gennady Kofman, Kirill Krasovski, Yulia Serdyukova

Production Companies: MaGiKa Film Company, faktura film, Honest Fish Documentary Stories

SYNOPSIS

In winter at the crossroads of savage East and civilized West, people of the Ukrainian part of the Danube delta earn their living by cutting reeds while dreaming to catch the legendary beluga fish that could bring the lucky one a fortune on the spot. With dreams rather than goals and water rather than firm ground beneath their feet, these people revel in the very moment of this unbearably lightness of being.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

Dok Leipzig, Next Master Competition, 2017

Best Ukrainian Feature Film & FIPRESCI Prize @ Odesa International Film Festival, 2018

by Alexandra Balteanu | Germany 2016 | 75'

FEATURE FILM

Romanian with English subtitles

FESTIVALS

2016 San Sebastian FF, Spain (New Directors New Films Competition)

2016 Zurich FF, Switzerland (Focus Switzerland, Germany and Austria Competition)

2017 Saarbrücken FF, Germany (Competition Max Ophüls Prize)

2017 Pune IFF, India

2017 Göteborg FF, Sweden (New Directors Competition)

2017 Guadalajara IFF, Mexico (Europa Nuevas Tendencias)

2017 Achtung Berlin, Germany (New Berlin Film Award Competition)

2017 Crossing Europe FF, Austria (Competition)

AWARDS

2017 Saarbrücken FF: Best Director Prize and the Prize of Ecumenical Jury

2017 Achtung Berlin: German Film Critics Association Award in the category ´Best Film´ and Special mention for the Best Director

SYNOPSIS

Lidia grows pigeons and lives a mundane existence with a husband and two children. Denisa has a boyfriend that needs new sneakers. Vanesa dreams of finding a boyfriend with green eyes. Three different women share a workplace and voice their daily concerns to each other in conversations.

You might think they are secretaries, who enjoy chatting about the banalities of life and have their daily coffee break together. Just a normal life, only that they are prostitutes in order to survive. The daily routine ends in a humiliating confrontation with the police and some ice-cream.

CREW

director ALEXANDRA BALTEANU

producer STANISLAV DANYLYSHYN

cinematography MATAN RADIN

production DFFB

DOWNLOADS

PRESSKIT ENGLISH

Director RUDOLF DOMKE | GERMANY | 2015 | 124'

DOCUMENTARY

German, Spanish, Russian, Guarani with English subtitles 

FESTIVALS

Filmfest München 2015, New German Cinema (WP)

Duisburger Filmwoche 2015

De Corpore Mortis describes the harsh life of a small German community of people in the remote area of Paraguay, after all dream are shattered. It is about the will to survive and to find a new home.

Synopsis

An ethnic German colony in Paraguay is in ruins. Although this colony exists less than 10 years, the dream of a social utopia that existed in this place, belongs to the past. Nikolai Neufeld, founder of the colony, is imprisoned for economic fraud, he has 60 million euros of debt and 1,700 creditors. About 15 years ago he bought lots of land in the remote area of Paraguay and started aggressively to promote to settle there. His audience was a minority in Germany, which is known as Russian-Germans, most of whom have German roots and have moved since the late 80's from the former Soviet Union to Germany and lived there already 10 to 20 years. His great promise was a municipal, carefree life in the rural idyll away from all disappointments and constraints of modern civilization. Most of the houses in the colony are abandoned by now. Many families have returned to Germany or try their luck elsewhere, in other places in Paraguay, Argentina or Canada, -if they have relatives there. The film is about the people who stayed there and try to survive, as self- sufficient farmers, as ranchers and missionaries. The school they must pay themselves or teach their own children. Those willing to integrate send their children to the Paraguayan schools in the surrounding villages. All entrepreneurial efforts have proved to be experiments that went bankrupt. 

The bold vision Neufelds to become the largest macadamia producer in the world, has remained an illusion. The film is a meditation on their hard life after the breakup of all dreams. It is also about subliminal aggression within a community that lives isolated, is divided and feels threatened in its existence, if not willing to adapt. Many of them are now armed and the will to peacefully communicate fades more and more. 

Directors Statement 

The cow that is slaughtered, keeps alive those who consume it. A seed dies and becomes something new. An ethnic German colony in South America disintegrates and provides opportunities for new forms of existence. This film is an examination of the textures of such deaths and of what it contains within itself.

Biography Director

Rudolf Domke, was born 1978 in Kustanaj, former USSR (Kazakhstan). Since the age of eleven he lived in Germany. After finishing school he traveled by foot several years. Then learned the craft of a stone sculptor. Since 2008, he is a film directing student at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, DFFB.

Filmography Director

2008  Herr Schäfer / Video / 16 Min

2009  Ein halber Tag im Leben eines Eichbeamten / 16mm / 5 Min 

2010  Der Vagabund / Super 16 / 14 Min 

2012  Schuld und Sühne / Super 16 / 20 Min 

2013  Carla / DCP / 12 Min

Technical Details

Country of production: Germany 

Year of production: 2015       

Genre: Documentary                                  

Running time: 124 min                

Screening format: DCP  

German, Spanish, Russian, Guarani with English subtitles 

Festivals & Sales

Laure Tinette | German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) l.tinette@dffb.de www.dffb.de    

A PROLETARIAN WINTER'S TALE by Julian Radlmaier | Germany 2014 | 63'

STREAM VOD

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/aproletarianwinterstale

LOGLINE

An absurdist fairy tale about three young Georgians who have to clean a German castle for an exhibition and get revolutionary ideas.

AWARDS

* Artistic Contribution Award, Olhar de Cinema - Curitiba IFF

* Audience Award, FICUNAM Mexico City

FESTIVALS

IFF Rotterdam 

Viennale - Vienna IFF

European Film Festival Sevilla

FICUNAM Mexico City

Olhar de Cinema - Curitiba IFF 

2morrow FF Moscow

IFF Ljubljana

IFF "Spirit of Fire" Khanty-Mansiysk

Bildrausch FF Basel

Fresh Film Fest Prague

Zagreb Human Rights FF

Festifreak Festival Int. de Cine Independiente La Plata

Arkipel Int. Documentary and Experimental FF Jakarta

FICIC Cosquín

Festival of German Cinema, Bucharest

Festival of German Cinema, Novosibirsk

Underdox Int. Documentary and Experimental FF Munich

Berlin Art Film Festival

Nuremberg Human Rights Film Festival

GegenKino Leipzig

Mikrokosmos Cinema Athens

PRESS QUOTES

Hope for cinema!
Gerwin Tamsma, IFF Rotterdam

A playful, unclassifiable, and barefaced film. Magnificent use of the depth of field.
"2nd best first feature 2014"
Roger Koza, Otro Cines, Argentina

Bold, symbolic, political cinema. With a brechtian attitude and marxist vocabulary. Ironic and colourful, but also unwieldy and theatrical. Totally different from the German cinema of the last Decade.
Brigitte Haring, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen

A true fairy tale the author of which succeeds to ask some actual and some eternal questions about the world, class struggle, neoconservatism, the return of reactionary rhetorics and the discreditation of leftist ideas. Surprisingly mature but with a youthful freshness. Between Straub, Athina Rachel Tsangari and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Vladimir Lyashchenko, Gazeta.ru

In a very interesting way, the film constructs an idiosyncratic cinematic space – somewhere between the asceticism of Straub and the playfulness of Iosseliani. A modern leftist cinema.
Evgeniy Maisel, Iskusstvo Kino (Kino Art)

A PROLETARIAN WINTER'S TALE has a lot to do with Brecht and his conception of the folk play. In this regard, one must think of the anarchistic humour of Liesl Karlstadt and Karl Valentin on the one hand, and, on the other hand, of that vivid abstract dream called MACHORKA-MUFF, which stands at the beginning of the oeuvre of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. The result is funny, proudly dialectic, simple but full of unexpected excentricities. And amdist all that: a trio looking so defiantly melancholic as if it came out of an early Kaurismäki.
Olaf Moller, Bildrausch FF Basel

A film that proves that Radlmaier is one of the few exciting young German filmmakers working today. It also provides another hope that the marginalization of serious and formally relevant German cinema in a national and international context might stop. His political comedy about three Georgian workers testing their revolutionary cabability during an art exhibition at a castle, is full of wit and intelligent use of stylistic devices. 
Patrick Holzapfel, twitchfilm. com, Canada

Very elegantly, Radlmaier created a modern fairy tale and proves that German cinema can be thriving beyond Mumblecore and the Berlin School.
Dunja Bialas, Artechok, Germany 

A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING EUROPE by Julian Radlmaier | Germany 2013 | 46'

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

German Film Critics Award for The Best Experimental Film 2014

* International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2013

* Viennna International Film Festival, 2013

* Filmfestival goEast, 2014

* 9. UNDERDOX Filmfestival für Dokument und Experiment, Munich, Germany 2014

SYNOPSIS

Berlin, a summer in the age of neoliberalism: the spectre of the soviet avant-garde is haunting the city. A young Georgian contract-worker is surprised to find the ghost of the Russian revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in his kitchen. At the same time, his friend Kasimir inherits a big fortune, but what shall he do with all this money? Framed by a travel through time leading to Flaubert’s 19th Century und the shooting of a revisionist melodrama for German television, the film follows the adventures of these three characters in contemporary Berlin. A suprematist digital comedy about the transmission of emancipatory energies.

Technical Details

Germany 2012

Short Fiction, 46 min, colour

Shooting format: Red MX,

Screening format: DCP (2K), 25 fps (original) / 24 fps (DCP),

Aspect ratio: 1:1,78 letterboxed to 1:1,33

DIRECTOR DARIA BELOVA | GERMANY | 2011 | 09'

SYNOPSIS

Another day at the ballet school. Classes routine goes as usual, when Sophie notices a boy outdoors, on the street. He was here yesterday already. She finds him mysterious, maybe she likes him, but doesn’t dare to do anything with it. Surrounded by her frivolously chattering classmates, she realizes that another girl is faster making decisions, and Sophie finds herself caught in a vortex of grief and aggression.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

For me the age of 12 is something very tender and touching. It is the age of mysteries and illusions. An age that is lived surrounded by mirrors. At that age, a very minor event can raise a storm in the soul of a young girl. The world of ballet, which is beautiful and cruel at the same time, and maturation and self-perception inside this closed space of a ballet school – this is my central theme here. Tenderness, that turns into cruelty, and the way it happens.

FESTIVALS

* 17th FESTIVAL BRASILEIRO DE CINEMA UNIVERSITARIO/ BRAZILIAN STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL 

*** PRIZE OF TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION AT FBCU ***
* 42nd ALCINE – THE ALCALÀ DE HENARES / COMUNIDAD DE MADRID FILM FESTIVAL (Madrid, Spain) 

*** SECOND AWARD FROM THE EUROPEAN SHORT FILM COMPETITION ALCINE***

* 57th CORONA CORK FILM FESTIVAL (Cork, Ireland) 

***SPECIAL MENTION***
8th DIECIMINUTI FILM FESTIVAL (Ceccano, Italy) 

***AWARD OF BEST PHOTOGRAPHY*** 

* PLUS CAMERIMAGE – INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF THE ART OF CINEMATOGRAPHY * 23rd TRIESTE FILM FESTIVAL (Italy, Int'l Competition)
* 56th BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (London, UK)
* 24th INT'L SHORT FILM FESTIVAL DRESDEN (Germany, Children's Special Program) 

* 16th SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL (B&H, Children's Program)
* 32nd FANTASPORTO – OPORTO INT'L FILM FESTIVAL (Portugal, Fantas in Shorts)
* 21st MUESTRA DE CINE INTERNACIONAL DE PALENCIA (Spain, Int'l Competition)
* 6th INT'L SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA (India, Int'l Competition)
* KKO FESTIVAL - 11th SHORT FILMS FESTIVAL OF ALTKIRCH (France, Int'l Competition)
* 13th FESTIWAL KINA AMATORSKIEGO I NIEZALEZNEGO KAN – 2012 (Poland, School Films Comp.)
* 7th BERKSHIRE INT'L FILM FESTIVAL (USA, Int'l Competition)
* SCREENING OF GERMAN FILM AND TELVISION ACADEMY BERLIN @ CINEMA BABYLON (Germany) * 9th FEMINA – INT'L WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL (Brazil, Int'l Competition)
* 42nd GIFFONI FILM FESTIVAL (Italy, Int'l Competition)
* 5th WIZ-ART (Ukraine, Int'l Competition)
* GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL 2012 (Canada, Int'l Competition)
* 9th SALENTO INT'L FILM FESTIVAL (Italy, Int'l Competition)
* 11th REGGIO FILM FESTIVAL (Italy)
* 12th INDEPENDENT SHORT FILM FESTIVAL at Goethe-Institut Kairo (Kairo, Egypt)
* KURZFILMNACHT GREIFSWALD 2012 (Greifswald, Germany)
* FILOFEST INTERNATIONAL STUDENT FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL 2012 (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
* 25th MINIMALEN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL (Trondheim, Norway)
* NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL 2013 (USA)
* STOCKHOLM FILM FESTIVAL JUNIOR (Stockholm, Sweden)
* INDEPENDENT DAYS 13 | FILMFEST (Karlsruhe, Germany) 

Director and Screenwriter:  Michal Ostatkiewicz
Producer:  Kirill Krasovski
Production Company:  German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb)

Synopsis
A silent Bermuda Triangle in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a café.
It's evening and Susan, a young woman, is sitting alone in a cafe. A couple with a dog enters and sits at the next table. Their dog seems to know Susan well, the man also. Susan doesn’t know the woman. And the man would like it should stay this way. But the dog helps Susan to find out what’s going on here.

Directors Statement
What interests me in this story, is the 'banality' of an infidelity and her resulting consequences. The tension that arises when the cheater and the cheated person meet each other by the blind chance and have to pretend: when the words are secondary and the suppressed feelings are dominant and overpowering.

Crew:
Director: Michal Ostatkiewicz
Script: Mirjam Charlotte Blümlein 
DoP: Merle Sarah Jothe      
Editor: Merle Sarah Jothe, Michal Ostatkiewicz   
Sound: Steffen Herzberg  
Music: Kai Ullmann
Producer: Kirill Krasovski

Cast:

Susan: Julia Thurnau
Wife: Melissa Holroyd
Husband: Christian Alexander Rogler

Biography Director

Born: 05.10.1976 in Augustow (Poland),
1995-2002: culture sciences studies at the University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Diplom
2002-2002: Camer Image Film School in Torun (Poland)
2005-2010: directing studies at dffb (German film and Television School Berlin)
2009: 21:37 – the first feature film (80min)

Filmography Director

Technical Details
Country of production: Germany 
Year of production: 2011         
Genre: comedy                                   
Running time: 5m.30s.                
Shooting format: RED           
Copy format: Digibeta                       
Frame rate: 25 fps                     
Aspect ratio: 16:9