A Voluntary Year
Description
High-school graduate Jette has plans to spend most of her gap year in Costa Rica. Though she wants to get out from under her domineering dad, Urs (Dark‘s Sebastian Rudolph), her departure means separation from her beloved boyfriend, Mario. Writer/directors Henner Winckler and Ulrich Köhler (In My Room, Festival 2019) pinpoint a very particular moment of adolescent ambivalence when drastic change is something both desired and feared, and newcomer Maj-Britt Klenke brilliantly conveys the impulsive and mercurial behavior that can result.
“The long walk to freedom is littered with the actions of interfering men who think they know best in A Voluntary Year (Das freiwillige Jahr). There are echoes of Toni Erdmann in this more compact German study of a father/daughter relationship that develops into a wryly observed deconstruction of toxic masculinity.” –Allan Hunter, Screen Daily
Biographies
Ulrich Köhler made his feature directing debut with Bungalow (2002), winner of a Silver Alexander at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Among his other films are Sleeping Sickness (Festival 2012), for which he won a Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival, and In My Room (Festival 2019).
Henner Winckler’s first feature was School Trip (2002). He went on to make Lucy (2006) and A Voluntary Year.