Film Festival
System Crasher (Systemsprenger)

Sun, 11/17/2019
4:15 PM Landmark's E Street Cinema

Germany, 2019, 120 min., Director/Screenplay: Nora Fingscheidt, Cast: Helena Zengel, Albrecht Schuch, Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Lisa Hagmeister

Festivals/Prizes:

• World Premiere at the International Competition, Berlinale 2019 – Alfred-Bauer-Preis, Preis der Leserjury der Berliner Morgenpost
• Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2019 – Hauptpreis Fliegender Ochse
• Thomas Strittmatter Drehbuchpreis 2017
• Kompagnon-Förderpreis des Programms Berlinale Talents 2017
• Emder Drehbuchpreis 2016

Rating: PG-13

Bernadette – or Benni, as she prefers to be known – is a delicate-looking girl with unbridled energy. She is a “system crasher,” a term used to describe children who break every rule; children who refuse to accept any structure and who gradually fall through the cracks in Germany’s child and welfare services. No matter where this nine-year-old is taken in, she is booted out after a short time. And that is exactly what she is after, because all she wants is to live with her mother again: a woman who is totally unable to cope with her daughter’s incalculable behavior.

From her own multi-award-winning script, Nora Fingscheidt has created an intense drama about one child’s overwhelming need for security and the potential for violence that this engenders. At the same time, the film depicts the tireless attempts of educators and psychologists, who use respect, trust, and confidence to create a way forward for children who threaten to destroy others and themselves through their unpredictable outbursts.

Nora Fingscheidt was born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1983. She spent her adolescence in Germany and Argentina. Since 2003, she has been involved in the development of the film-school collective, filmArche, in Berlin, while simultaneously completing training as an acting coach. Between 2008 and 2017 she studied fiction directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. She was nominated for the German Short Film Award for her second-year film Synkope and participated in Berlinale Talents in 2012. She completed her degree with the documentary Ohne diese Welt which won several awards including the Max Ophüls Prize in 2017.

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