A HERO’S WELCOME

NACHT VOR AUGEN

 

Directed by Brigitte Maria Bertele

FRIDAY JANUARY 16 9PM CASTRO

Twenty-five-year-old David (Hanno Koffler) returns to his home village in the Black Forest from a Bundeswehr mission in Afghanistan. His girlfriend Kirsten (Petra Schmidt-Schaller) and his mother are overjoyed to see him safe and well and his shy eight-year-old brother is full of admiration for him. But David is close-mouthed, brusque, and not the same man he was before the mission. He is plagued by an inner turmoil; he can’t get the war he has left behind out of his head and nobody wants to hear about it. Only his young brother who begs David to become his soccer coach, gets a glimpse of the horror when the sports training quickly turns violent.
In her feature debut, Bertele succeeds in laying bare the psychic conditions and traumas of her protagonist and to show unconscious mechanisms of suppression.

 

IN PERSON: Brigitte Maria Bertele

 

 

 

PURCHASE TICKET

West Coast Premiere

Country
Germany
Year
2008
Run Time
35mm, 102min., German
with English subtitles
Cast
Hanno Koffler
Petra Schmidt-Schaller
Jona Ruggaber
Magarita Broich
Wolfram Koch
Maxim Mehmet
Bruno Cathomas
Christina Große
Camera
Mathias Prause
Screenwriter
Johanna Stuttmann
Printsource
EastWest Filmdistribution
Email
office@eastwestdistribution.com
Awards
Screenplay Award Baden-Württemberg 2007
Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2008: DEFA Newcomer Award
Internationales Filmfest Emden-Norderney 2008: NDR Newcomer Award
First Steps Award 2008: Best Feature Film

Director

Brigitte Maria Bertele
born 1974, studied Acting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Ulm, followed by Master Classes in New York, Moscow and Berlin. After engagements at theatres across Germany, she studied Directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg, during that time she participated in exchange programs in Albania and Argentina. Her films include the shorts: UMBRÜCHE (1996), CARLSFELDER ATEM (2002), PLATZVERWEIS (2002), ANNÄHERUNGEN AN ALICE (2002) and DAS VERHÖR (2002). A HERO’S WELCOME is her feature debut.