Film Screening "HOLIDAYS"
by Bernadette Knoller
GOETHE FILMS: Heimat NOW
© Archiv für Filmposter
Series co-presented by the German National Tourist OfficeMountains, sea, sunshine & romance – these are a few of the favourite things in the escapist and house-proud German Heimatfilms of the 1950s, as in the “Sissi” series that brought the young Romy Schneider to fame.
60 years later the genre is back. What is the state of the nation? How do new films reflect the country’s regionalism after reunification, from North to South and East to West?
HOLIDAYS (Germany, 2016, 89 min), directed by Bernadette Knoller, with Detlev Buck, Britta Hammelstein, Inga Busch, and others
North American Premiere
Film Festival Max Ophüls Prize Saarbrücken 2016
Fritz-Raff Screenplay Award Saarbrücken 2016
Vivian Baumann is exhausted. She’s on her way to becoming a district attorney and about to move in with her boyfriend, but she feels stuck. She tries to retreat to her mother’s, but there is no room for her either. Her father thinks she just needs to take a break and sends her off to a Frisian Island in the North Sea.
Vivi takes pleasure in the tranquil village full of seniors and decides to stay on the island. She finds herself a job in an old junk shop and a room at Biene’s, a single mother who lives with her 13-year-old son Eric in an enchanting cottage. Apparently, though, not only Vivi needs a break: One day, Biene packs her things and disappears. Suddenly, Vivi finds herself between other people’s children and her own problems.
“A wonderfully warm-hearted, refreshingly casual and often absurdly comical story about a dropout.” – Filmstarts.de
Bernadette Knoller was born in Bavaria in 1986 and grew up on a farm in Schleswig-Holstein. She studied at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and has worked as an assistant director at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Her films include the shorts A24 ABFAHRT WITTENBERG (2008), MEIN MALLORCA (2010), MAMA UND PAPA (2010), ALTE ÄSTE (2012) and her feature debut HOLIDAYS (2016).
Film co-presented by Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival
All GOETHE FILMS are open to audience 18+
Part of the Goethe-Institut’s focus on German Film