Part of SFFILM Festival
In My Room
Description
What if the apocalypse happens not with a bang but with a whimper? And what if you were the only survivor yet didn’t have an affinity for life in the first place? These are some of the issues explored with droll humor in Ulrich Köhler’s (Sleeping Sickness, Festival 2012) latest film. After falling asleep in his car, Armin awakens to find that everyone around him has vanished. What it means for him to be truly alone, and whether he actually is, are but two of the many revelations the film has in store.
“There are myriad pleasures in Köhler’s film, not least the guessing game he makes the audience play about what kind of movie they’re watching. Sci-fi? Comedy? Horror? Drama? The smattering of all of the above slowly gives way to a deliberate purgatorial holding pattern. There’s joy and misery, promise and disappointment. His camera has to consistently remain open and surprised but confident in order for the sustained effect of his dramatic scheme to hold. Each cut brings us further away from what we thought we were watching and into delectable surprise.” – Scout Tafoya, RogerEbert.com
Co-presented by
Berlin&Beyond
Goethe Institut
Ulrich Köhler started making short films while studying Visual Communication at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. In 2002, he made his feature debut Bungalow, followed by Montag kommen die Fenster (2006); and Sleeping Sickness (Festival 2012), for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. Of his work, Köhler says, “All my films are personal in a way; my fantasy as a writer… well, it’s not that I decide to write like that, but during the writing process retrospectively I realize it’s always about a person that could have been me. One that makes a different decision and takes another path, and thinking that through. ‘What if?’ kind of storytelling.”
Film Details
Year 2018
Language German, English
Runtime 119
Country Germany/Italy
Director Ulrich Köhler
Producer Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen
Writer Ulrich Köhler
Editor Laura Lauzemis
Cinematographer Patrick Orth
Cast Hans Löw, Elena Radonicich, Michael Wittenborn
Print Source Grasshopper Filmnick@grasshopperfilm.comgrasshopperfilm.com
