A petty criminal lets a filmmaker in—now who's really exploiting who?
Dima, a petty criminal, is in constant fear of his imminent deportation from Germany.This fear he compensated by carelessness. As he meets one day Sarah, who is working on a documentary about young foreigners, he becomes the main subject of the film. Sarah offers him shelter in her loft, and the two of them get emotionally tied up.
Acting
Hüller and Matschenz navigate power with painful precision.
Direction
Lewandowski weaponizes the documentary format against viewer comfort.
Director
Piotr J. Lewandowski
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made in 2009, this predates Germany's 2015 refugee 'crisis' coverage—eerily prescient about documentary ethics debates.
Sandra Hüller later starred in 'Toni Erdmann' and 'Anatomy of a Fall'—this early short shows her gift for moral ambiguity.
DE
