Chapter "Vergiss Amerika" (Forget America) - teaching material for the film

A story about the longings of three young people in the small East German town of Aschleben is the directorial debut of the year.
Nobody wants to go to America. But David (Marek Harloff), Benno (Roman Knizka) and Anna (Franziska Petri) do want to get out of Aschleben: the title and the small East German town stand for their dreams, which seem as impossible as selling Benno's old US luxury car. In order to pay off a bank loan and not look like a failure, the braggart gets involved with Polish car pushers. His shy buddy David wants to become a photographer, but after his father's accident at work, he can only work in the local photo store. When the shop goes bankrupt, David ends up behind the fish counter of a supermarket. Only the angelic Anna makes it to acting school in Berlin - and then only to become a dubbing artist for porn films. If she had to compare her film, the young director Vanessa Jopp has explained, it would most likely be with Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Performance". A high standard that her debut nevertheless lives up to. With an eye that is as clear as it is poetic, she circles her characters, who wander between longing, stagnation and self-deception, and who struggle with fate. For Benno and David love Anna. And Anna loves Benno. In any case, she chooses him and is just as unhappy about it as David. But the passionate actors act so close to life that one begrudges them their departure in failure.