Among the ten feature films competing for the Flying Ox award at the 35th
Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were three promising feature-film debuts by
German directors: Gropiusstadt Supernova (2025) by Ben Voit, Ich verstehe Ihren
Unmut (2026) by Kilian Armando Friedrich, and Der Heimatlose (2026) by Kai
Stänicke.
According to Ben Voit, who is studying feature film directing at the Film University
Babelsberg, the production costs for his feature film debut Gropiusstadt
Supernova—already a winner at the Max Ophüls Prize—amounted to just 13,000
euros. Voit limits the plot to a New Year’s Eve afternoon and evening. At the center is
young Luan, who learns on this day that his older brother is to be deported and that
his girlfriend Stella has been accepted to an acting school in the U.S. To prevent
being separated from these two loved ones, he rushes through Berlin-Gropiusstadt,
while fireworks and rockets light up the sky in the background.
From the very beginning, the debut director evokes the hustle and bustle of the big
city through close-ups and rapid editing, but later also captures Luan’s restlessness.
Voit masterfully plays with light and color, and through quiet scenes, he repeatedly
creates poetic and melancholic moments. This visually exciting film thus exudes a
sense of freshness and drive, and suggests a highly promising future for the director.
Kilian Armando Friedrich’s Ich verstehe Ihren Unmut is reminiscent of the early
films by the Dardenne brothers. The handheld cameras of Louis Dickhaut and
Frederik Seeberger closely follow the 59-year-old operations manager of a cleaning
company as she goes about her daily work and engages in telephone discussions
with dissatisfied customers and company management.
Through its quasi-documentary style, as well as the casting of Sabine Thalau—who
herself worked as a cleaner — in the lead role, this music-free film powerfully
conveys the pressure and stress under which the protagonist operates. Thus, not
only the inhumane working conditions but also the various power dynamics within this
low-wage sector are vividly brought to light. There seems to be no room for solidarity,
and it is only toward the end that this breathless social drama begins to settle down,
as a quiet hope for change and a fresh start is awakened.
In Der Heimatlose, Kai Stänicke transports us to a village on a remote North Sea
island. A man in his late twenties returns after a 14-year absence, but the residents
are unable or unwilling to recognize him and decide to determine his true identity by
staging a village tribunal.
With minimalist sets reminiscent of Lars von Trier’s Dogville, archaic clothing, and an
old-fashioned village structure, Stänicke strips his debut of any specific temporal
anchoring and develops a gripping parable about the role of lies and self-deception in
stabilizing a society, but also one’s own sense of self. This film achieves great depth
not only through its focus on the village and its scrutiny of the returnee, but also
through its formal coherence and the magnificent cinematography by Florian Mag,
dominated by dark earth tones and a perpetually cloud-covered sky.
By Walter Gasperi
Edited by Anne-Christine Loranger
Copyright FIPRESCI 2026