A group of young people draws straws to see who'll steal some cigarettes. With this theft, Sebastian starts a bizarre, symbolic odyssey through a sclerotic world, in search of himself and of truth and justice. When he tries withdrawing from one social paradigm, he finds himself caught in another.
Direction
Weiß crafts Kafkaesque comedy from bureaucratic decay.
Acting
Ranisch's deadpan spiral through institutional absurdity.
Director
Ulrich Weiß
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in the dying days of East Germany, the film captures a generation's identity crisis as their entire ideological framework collapsed literally during production.
Director Ulrich Weiß was banned from filmmaking for years after criticizing the GDR; this was his defiant return, made with state funds while the state crumbled.
DE
