Identity Kills

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, 2003, 81 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

24-year-old Karen returns home after a period spent in a psychiatric clinic and tries to live a normal life. Her partner Ben, who isn´t the least interested in Karen´s problems, has in the meantime brought home his former girlfriend. Disgusted and humiliated, Karen decides to take her life into her own hands. She tries to get work in a small factory producing cutlery and kitchenware. To her surprise, Ben starts taking an interest in her again and they even get married. Karen´s new-found happiness, however, does not last long, since Ben is soon his coarse and egotistical self once again. After a chance meeting, Karen decides to do something reckless: to become an entirely different person. In order to attain her goal, she assumes the identity of an ambitious young girl named Fanny who finds a job in a Caribbean hotel advertised in the small ads. The real Fanny has no idea what is going on… The film was made without a screenplay and adopts documentary film approaches; the actors aren´t just performing before the camera but are co-authors of the story and were not given the opportunity to try out the scenes beforehand. The filming method employed precluded the chance of funding from film or television companies. 

About the director

Sören Voigt (b. 1968, Pinneberg, Germany). He studied screenwriting and directing at PWSFTViT in Lodz, Poland (1991-1993) and at the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) in Berlin (1993-1999). Here he graduated with the feature-length comedy set in a campsite in former East Germany Perfect Sight (Tolle Lage, 2000), for which he won a number of awards. He founded the production company Living Films OHG with Gergana Voigt in 2001. Filmography: shorts Southern Star (Südstern, 1995), The Supper / Sometimes I Wish (Abendbrot, 1996), the documentary Bread´n´Butter (1997), Calls (2002). The drama Identity Kills (2003) is his second feature film.