LOVE STEAKS

Clemens (Franz Rogowski), shy and awkward, starts an internship in the wellness area of a large hotel on the Baltic coast. Lara (Lana Cooper) works in the same hotel’s kitchen as a cook, loud, unrestrained, always looking for the next adventure. Between the massage room and the cold store, something begins between the two that neither of them can name – a coming-together in which tenderness and roughness sit close to one another. “Love Steaks” by Jakob Lass, Germany, 2013.

It was shot inside a hotel during ongoing operations, with the staff playing themselves in supporting roles; the film was largely improvised, following rules that Lass calls “Fogma” – the next consonant after the D of Dogme. At its premiere at the Munich Film Festival in 2013, “Love Steaks” became the first film in the festival’s history to win all four of its development awards: screenplay, production, acting and direction. The Max Ophüls Prize followed in 2014. “Love Steaks” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2013 in the Deutschland Spezial section.