DRAUSSEN IST SOMMER

Wanda (Maria Dragus) is 14 when her family moves from Stuttgart to German-speaking Switzerland. The move is meant to be a fresh start after her father Joachim (Wolfram Koch) had an affair; her mother Anna (Nicolette Krebitz) has sunk into lethargy, and her siblings Sophie and Bubi rebel in their own ways. For a while it looks as though things might improve. Then the old accusations return, and Wanda, who is just becoming an adult herself, tries to hold her parents together as the family falls apart. “Draußen ist Sommer” by Friederike Jehn, Germany/Switzerland 2012.

Jehn observes with an almost documentary matter-of-factness what critics singled out in Maria Dragus above all: her quiet but energetic fight against disintegration. The film was shot on 35mm, in the original Swiss German and German, and had its world premiere in September 2012 in the New Directors strand of the San Sebastián festival; the German Film Rating Board awarded it the rating “wertvoll” (valuable), and in 2013 it went on to win the Fliegender Ochse at the Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and prizes for direction and lead actress in Balneário Camboriú. The film was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2012, in the Deutschland Spezial section.

Shown at the 2012 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2012 · Film Archive