User Score
5 votes
Thomas Heise’s film reframes Pope Benedict XVI’s September 2011 visit to Erfurt not as a triumphal “Pope-mania” spectacle but as a meticulously orchestrated state ritual. In austere black-and-white, the omnipresent pontiff yields to police, snipers, security guards and a nervous premier, all in rigid protocol amidst Thuringia’s Catholic enclave. Under the cathedral’s slogan, “We are all together in our beliefs,” Heise quietly asks whether such choreographed faith still holds meaning.
Director
Writer
Status
Released
Original Language
EN

Äls, a young woman from Sweden living in Hamburg in the summer months attracts a newly married explorer, Albrecht Froben who has just returned to his native city. But although Äls seems to be 'life itself', she suffers from a tropical disease which is slowly killing her. Froben is torn between Äls and his wife Octavia, who he seen as a kind of 'heavenly' counterpart to the earthy and beguiling Äls.

Struggling to overcome cycles of betrayal, revenge and violence, the Traoré brothers continue to fight for a brighter future in a seedy Paris suburb.