23 minutes. One ferry. The breakup of a lifetime.
Long-term partners Marc and Adrien live a seemingly perfect existence close to Lake Constance. Only whilst Marc is content to spend his days working for the local ferry service, Adrien yearns for the bright lights of Berlin and the clubs in which he hopes to realize his dream of becoming a musician. Yet life has a way of turning out not as you expect and here events culminate on a lengthy ferry crossing, one that sees Marc soon to spot Adrien onboard, complete with a one-way ticket and a car packed full of his belongings. Suffice to say that the stage is set for a traumatic farewell.
Acting
Münstermann's silent devastation watching the car drive on.
Cinematography
Lake Constance as liminal space—neither here nor Berlin.
Direction
Ulbrich stretches 23 minutes into eternal dread.
Director
Falk Chrysologus Ulbrich
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of a wave of early-2000s German queer shorts exploring rural-urban queer migration, when Berlin was still cheap enough to dream.
The ferry itself is Styx—the river of the dead in Greek myth—making this literal passage into the underworld of breakups.
DE
