BEST OF
RSVP via Eventbrite
Writer-Director: Petra Volpe. Switzerland/Germany, 2013, 99 min. German and Bulgarian with English Subtitles. Cast: Luna Zimić Mijović, André Jung, Ursina Lardi, Bettina Stucky, Stefan Kurt, Devid Striesow, Marisa Peredes
On Christmas Eve in Zürich, four stories of despair, duplicity, and alienation unfold. Pregnant Lena (Lardi) learns of her husband Martin’s (Striesow) on-going infidelities as she prepares the family’s Christmas celebration.
Social worker Judith (Stucky) meets a police officer in a hotel room to act out fantasies she’d never propose to her boyfriend, Jonas (Kurt).
Lonely, recently divorced Rolf (Jung) yearns to reconnect with his teenage daughter. Widow Maria (Marisa Peredes) believes the answer to her loneliness is a relationship with widower Juan, though he still longs for his deceased wife.
Connecting all four narratives is Mia (Mijovic), a teenage prostitute with a young child back home in Bulgaria. These tales of isolation and betrayal are contrasted with Mia’s increasingly desperate struggle to secure a better life for herself and her child amidst the brutality of the human trafficking world. Renowned Director of Photography Judith Kaufmann’s precise and unaffected visual aesthetic supports Volpe’s well-crafted screenplay through her use of atmospheric lighting and subtle camera movement.
SELECT AWARDS:
- Best Actress (Ursina Lardi) Swiss Film Award (2014).
- Best Editing (Hansjörg Weissbrich) Deutscher Kamerapreis (2014).
- Nominated for Best Fiction Film, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, Swiss Film Award (2014).
Presented with the support of the Consulate General of Switzerland in Los Angeles
© Consulate General of Switzerland in Los Angeles
$1 validated parking (for events only) on weekdays after 6:00 pm and all day on weekends in the Wilshire Courtyard West underground garage-P1.
Back
