Jakob Lass
15 directors explore the question of whether the cinema is dying out as a location, an art form, and language.
Hamburg, St. Pauli, New Year's Eve. Oskar Wrobel runs a music club in an old hospital at the edge of the Reeperbahn. While fireworks go off in the streets of St. Pauli, he prepares the big final party - the club has to close. Thankfully there is no time to think about it because the chaos is breaking into his living room, all while hell break loose at the club. The film, based on the novel by Tino Hanekamp, was filmed with hundreds of extras attending a real-life three-night-long party.
Having failed to get into the police force, Margarete takes up training as a security guard. One night she runs into a sexually agressive ex-colleague who insists on hailing a taxi to take her home to his place. Enter Tiger: short brown hair, a tough girl and a fighter, the cab driver. Realising that the situation is far from consensual, Tiger speeds off with Margarete, leaving her companion standing in the street. It won’t be the last time she rushes to Margarete’s aid. Tiger lives in an attic flat with two men. She knows how to wield a baseball bat. Stealing a uniform from security and renaming Margarete ‘Vanilla’, she begins to steer her life in a completely different direction.
Ferdi thinks he's ugly – but likes the fact Jona is interested in him. Maybe because she's blind. What Ferdi doesn't suspect: She's just pretending to be blind to be able to live cheaply in subsidized housing. How long can she maintain her charade? Can love, which is supposed to make you blind, even work out that way? Director Tom Lass takes a closer look, shooting with blind actors and old Berlin buddies, acting the lead himself – paying tribute to a way of life beyond our way of seeing the world.
"Frontalwatte" is like running against a hard wall and falling down softly. Franz, Adrian and Anastasia stumble through a pointless world. They kill time by viewing apartments, jaw operations, incest and poetry slams. Their search for identity becomes a search for the best fitting role.
A luxury hotel. Steaks frizzle, muffintops getting massaged. Clemens (rare) joins the wellness area as a rookie. Lara (well-done) needs to assert herself in the kitchen pack. The elevator brings the two of them together. They encounter each other, until they clash.
Denny is living the high life in Berlin and is having sex with a lot of girls. Denny got a mother. This mother just got a new husband: Frank. Denny hasn't talked to his mother in 10 years. Frank wants to change this. He takes a train to Berlin. Who's gonna be the first to mature?
Paul is a lifeguard at an indoor swimming bath and enjoys flirting with girls.
