Filmsuche

People in Motion

Christoph Lauenstein // Deutschland // 2021 // 08:42 min

Animation

Synopsis:
In einem Land ohne Licht bringt das Auftauchen eines fremdartigen Leuchtkörpers das Miteinander der Bewohner in Bewegung. Egoismus und Gier finden Einzug in die dunkle Welt. Der surreale Puppenanimationsfilm erzählt eine eigenwillige Parabel über Neid und Missgunst.

Drei Fragen an die Regie

1. Short Film has a unique way of telling stories and exploring themes. What is it that fascinates you about the short format ?

Christoph Lauenstein: We truly love the limitless possibilities of telling stories in short film. A short film can be like a poem. Compared to a novel a poem can use completely different techniques of creating a world with words. Because we did both, writing stories for long feature films and for short films we are able to compare their different approach very well. In our short films we always tried to create our very own way of story telling. In our first short film BALANCE we started reducing our stories as far as possible to the essential. Showing just the quintessence, and nothing else. This became our own style in short films. This is something unique that has nothing
in common with classical story telling. No feature film can do this.

2. The program your film is selected for is called “Mapping New Roads”: What connection do you see between your film and that title?

Christoph Lauenstein: Our film „People in Motion“ highlights the shortcomings of human behaviour and how impulsive we can be without realizing. What does people set in motion? Is it just greed and egoism? Our people are completely focused in stealing a march on the others, instead of finding ways of cooperation. They are so focused on finding ways to achieve their own selfish goals, and to outdo the others, that the foresight and thinking about long-term consequences has no chance. You can see this film as a kind of social experiment. What would you do in a changing world?

3. What film has inspired you most to make films yourself and what part of it do you see in your own work?

Christoph Lauenstein: In the beginning our inspiration doesn`t come from animation films. When we started our career we were interested in filmmakers who tried to expand the way of story telling like Andrej Tarkovskij, Michelangelo Antonioni etc. But also we loved the art of Samuel Beckett and Alberto Giacometti. These artists helped us finding our own style. And later the impressive animation films of the great Paul Driessen inspired us
a lot. His way of combining profound content with a special sense of humor opened our eyes.