Closing Night

GRAVE DECISIONS

WER FRÜHER STIRBT IST LÄNGER TOT

Directed by Marcus H. Rosenmüller

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 16 7PM CASTRO
FOLLOWED BY CLOSING NIGHT PARTY CASTRO

Eleven-year old Sebastian Schneider lives with his innkeeper father Lorenz and older brother Franz in a Bavarian hamlet. Without meaning to, Sebastian often gets into trouble, and when he inadvertently kills Franz’s rabbits, Franz accuses Sebastian of killing their mother because she died while giving birth to him. Soon Sebastian’s sense of guilt conjures up visions of hellfire and damnation, which are stoked by the religious melodrama that pub regulars are rehearsing under his bedroom. To save himself, Sebastian thinks maybe finding a new wife for his dad might help, but his dad suddenly feels magnetically drawn to Veronika, Sebastian’s teacher. She is already married to Alfred, the local radio disc jockey and part-time shaman who seems to be channeling a mish-mash of romanticized American 1960’s and 70’s hippie counterculture. In filtering the inexplicable mysteries of love, life, and death through the lens of little-boy innocence, Marcus Rosenmüller’s use of surreal imagery makes for a slightly morbid Bavarian comedy. –Petra Wehle

INVITED Jule Ronstedt

PURCHASE TICKET

Country
Germany
Year
2006
Run Time
102 min, 35mm, color
German with English subtitles
Cast
Markus Krojer
Fritz Karl
Jürgen Tonkel
Jule Ronstedt
Saskia Vester Camera
Stefan Biebl
Screenwriter
Marcus H. Rosenmüller
Christian Lerch
Printsource
Goethe-Institut, Munich
Email
muenchen@goethe.de

Awards
German Film Awards:
Best Direction, Best Film Score, Best Screenplay (2007)
Bavarian Film Awards: Best Direction – Young Film, Best Production (2007)
Director

Marcus H. Rosenmüller
was born in Tegernsee in 1973. He completed his film studies in 2003 at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) in Munich. While still at HFF he made a number of prize-winning films, including HOTEL DEEPA (2001), a 43-minute feature film shot on location in India. His features include: WER FRÜHER STIRBT IST LÄNGER TOT (2005/2006), SCHWERE JUNGS (2006), and BESTE ZEIT (2007).