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Feature film
Western

Western
© Komplizen Film, Photo (detail): Iris Janke

Director: Valeska Grisebach | Cast: Meinhard Neumann, Reinhardt Wetrek, Syuleyman Alilov Letifov, Veneta Frangova, Vyara Borisova | Language: German, Bulgarian, with English subtitles

A group of German builders sets off to work on a building site in the Bulgarian provinces. The foreign land and its rough and largely unspoilt countryside soon give the men a taste for adventure. At the same time, they are confronted by their own prejudices and distrust. Although relations with the inhabitants of a nearby village are difficult – not least because of the language barriers, which at first are virtually insurmountable – Meinhard manages to befriend the locals; yet his colleague Vincent watches the approaches with jealous mistrust. For the two men, the nearby village becomes the scene of a battle for the recognition and favour of its residents.

In Western, Valeska Grisebach has created a haunting culture-clash drama using non-professional actors

Unbelievable tension … The non-professional cast of Bulgarians and Germans gives the film a consistency that literally frees it from fiction. It is rare to find a film with this much physicality, humanity and reality.

Badische Zeitung

 

Valeska Grisebach was born in 1968 in Bremen, Germany. She studied philosophy and literature in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. She began a degree in directing at the Film Academy Vienna in 1993, one of her teachers being Michael Haneke. Her graduation film Be My Star won the FIPRESCI Award in Toronto and the main award (for best film) in Turin. Longing, her second feature film, was shown in the Berlinale competition section and won numerous international awards. Valeska Grisebach worked for a time as a lecturer at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (German Film and Television Academy Berlin, DFFB).

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