Oktay Inanç Özdemir und / and Hussein Eliraqui in Meteorstraße / Meteor Street von / by Aline Fischer © Maurice Wilkerling

Leuchtstoff Project Meteorstraße to Open the Programme

With twelve films, including eight full-length films as well as four medium-long fiction and documentary films, the Perspektive Deutsches Kino 2016 is now complete (see press release from Dec 21, 2015). The programme will open with the fiction film Meteorstraße (Meteor Street), which was produced by Credo Film (Berlin) and realized with the support of Leuchtstoff, an initiative launched by rbb (Berlin-Brandenburg’s public radio and television station) the regional public broadcaster, and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Born in France, director Aline Fischer got her masters in documentary film directing in Lussas (France). With Meteorstraße, she has now also completed her studies at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (which co-produced the film).

“I’m delighted to be able to open with such an aesthetic and substantial film debut. The story, which revolves around eighteen-year-old Mohammed (Hussein Eliraqui) and his search for direction in an uncertain world, is exemplary for this year’s programme selection,” says Perspektive head Linda Söffker.

Whereas in Meteorstraße it is an Lebanese adolescent whose family has fled to Berlin, in TORO (D: Martin Hawie, P: KHM - Academy of Media Arts, Cologne) it is a young Polish man (Paul Wollin), who came to Germany ten years earlier in search of a future. Toro, whose name is actually Piotr, hopes to realise his dream of opening a boxing school in Poland and to do so earns his living as an escort and by having sex with middle-class women. Perspektive Deutsches Kino will show the film on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Hof International Film Festival and welcome Heinz Badewitz, founder and long-standing director of the festival, as its guest. In 2015 TORO had its world premiere at the Montreal Film Festival and then screened at the Hof International Film Festival.

The many young people in the documentary Die Prüfung (The Audition) - directed by Till Harms and produced by Lichtblick Media (Berlin) - also have a dream: they want to become actors. The film explores the complicated microcosm of admission exams at a school for dramatic arts in Hanover, while focussing on the examiners in particular. Are there criteria? And if so, what are they? And how, if at all, can talent be evaluated?

Lotte (Karin Hanczewski), the title character in Julius Schultheiß’s fiction film, already has a profession - she is a nurse. But it is by no means her calling. Instead Lotte seeks excitement in her nightlife. And although she has an almost adult daughter, she herself is unable and unwilling to grow up. Director and producer Julius Schultheiß was a student at the Kassel School of Art and Design until 2014 and is celebrating his debut with Lotte, which he also produced.

With a Romanian co-partner, director Ronny Dörfler produced A Quiet Place, his 24-minute fiction film, himself as well. A young woman (Madalina Craiu) returns to her parents farm in Romania, but ends up not staying long. She resolves to defend herself against her father’s abuse and free her younger sister (Oana Rusu) from all the troubles there. The two sisters decide to run away together and, despite all uncertainties, take their futures into their own hands.

Where did the children from Windholm disappear to? Twenty years ago, when the tide went out on the coast of Windholm, the town children disappeared with it. Officially they are considered dead. Set in the near future, the science fiction film Wir sind die Flut (We Are the Tide, P: Anna Wendt Filmproduktion, a Leuchtstoff project in cooperation with rbb and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg) is about two young scientists (Max Mauff, Lana Cooper) who want to get to the bottom of this mystery. Wir sind die Flut is director Sebastian Hilger’s graduation film for the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and, at the same time, author Nadine Gottmann’s graduation screenplay for the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy.

Three films complete the programme, that have been invited as guests to the Perspektive 2016. At the opening, Sophia Bösch and Sophie Linnenbaum’s four-minute experimental documentary Research Refugees: Meinungsaustausch (Research Refugees: Duologue) will be presented. Michael Klier initiated the “Research Refugees” project with students at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and the Bauhaus Universiät Weimar. In all, eleven short films are to be made: a work in progress about the current refugee situation.

On February 21, 2016 – Berlinale Publikumstag - the Perspektive will show the winning films of the Max Ophüls Prize 2016 for the best long fiction film and the First Steps Award 2015 for the best documentary (Hinter dem Schneesturm / Beyond the Snowstorm, D: Levin Peter).