62nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film

Motivation: The film “starts out as a personally motivated journey into a claustrophobic world of extreme social exclusion and leads from there to a meditative reflection on the human condition. The film explores a place where men who have been sentenced to life-long imprisonment live in a limbo of complete solitude, hoping for release back into human society without knowing if this ever will happen. Their hope is to find forgiveness for the murders they committed. The filmmaker’s journey starts out with his own unwillingness to forgive his brother’s murderer, a man whose sentence was suspended early on in his term. In the end, the filmmaker frees himself by overcoming his personal bitterness and by renouncing his own potentially brutal desire for revenge. This journey into grace unfolds in a strikingly concise cinematic style, leaving us deeply affected.”