Sophie Linnenbaum, born in 1986, has only made one documentary and one feature film so far, but has already proven that she is one of Germany’s most innovative filmmakers. Already in 2016 she won first prizes with her original short film (OUT OF FRA)ME, in which a film character falls out of the frame and struggles to find her way back into it. With PIX, which reduces a life to its most photogenic moments, she won the German Short Film Award a year later. The eight-minute film was screened at around 50 national and international festivals and won 15 awards. RIEN NE VA PLUS (2017) and DAS MENSCH (2019) were also screened at numerous festivals and won awards.
In addition to these four short films, we will show Linnenbaum’s first feature-length film VÄTER UNSER, her award-winning documentary about father-child relationships of various forms, at our festival. The documentary received, among others, the FFF-Förderpreis at DOK.fest Munich and was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award. In addition, we have her first feature film in the program, THE ORDINARIES, for which she was awarded the “New German Cinema” sponsorship prize and the directing prize at its premiere at the Munich Film Festival. THE ORDINARIES, in a way a continuation of (OUT OF FRA)ME, can be seen at the International Film Festival before its official theatrical release.
Sophie Linnenbaum has an unmistakable signature of her own. Her films are quirky, light, imaginative, surreal, almost experimental, fun and profound at the same time. Harald Mühlberger, critic at kino-zeit.de, sums it up in his review of THE ORDINARIES: “It’s so rare to see such an imaginative and original and funny and intelligent film!” Linnenbaum himself says, “To me, films are like good, smart friends who communicate with you and ask questions and keep your heart warm.”
We would like to thank Filmuniversität Babelsberg for kindly allowing us to show the short films at our festival.
SHORTS
[Out of Fra]me
Deutschland
Short film | dF (german) | 2016 | 18 min
Das Mensch
Deutschland
Short film | dF (german) | 2019 | 17 min
Pix
Deutschland
Short film | dF (german) | 2017 | 8 min
Rien ne va plus
Deutschland
Short film | dF (german) | 2017 | 15 min
DOCUMENTARY
Väter unser
Deutschland
Documentary | dF (german) | 2021 | 75 min | in competition
FEATURE
The Ordinaries
Deutschland
Feature | dF (german) | 2022 | 120 min | in competition