SPECIAL GUEST & RECEPTION
We are pleased to welcome producer Stefanie Groß to this opening film, which will be followed by a reception courtesy of the German Embassy Dublin.

Seventeen-year-old Russian immigrant Sascha (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) lives in a rough Stuttgart neighbourhood where her family has some notoriety, with her stepfather imprisoned for the brutal murder of her mother. When Sascha sees a sympathetic newspaper interview with the convict, she angrily confronts the editor, Volker (Ulrich Noethen), whose guilt leads him to invite Sascha into his home, where he lives with son Felix (Max Hegewald). In this environment, 

the harsh and abrasive young woman slowly begins to mature into someone more open and accepting of the world’s flaws. At the heart of documentarian Bettina Blümner’s debut feature is Fritzi Bauer’s excellent performance as the complex and troubled Sascha, yearning for escape from the past and hope for the future. (Notes by Kevin Coyne.)

This event is screening as part of IFI Kinofest 2014 (October 9th – 12th), in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Irland, presenting a short selection of the best in contemporary German cinema.