Winter Journey

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, 2006, 95 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

Franz Brenninger is sixty, but up to now he has managed his small company with a firm hand. He lives in a modern house in the country, has brought up two children, and remains a constant support to his sick wife Martha. It is Martha who is the first to notice that something is wrong with Franz: he suffers from mood swings that have an increasingly visible effect on his relations with the world around him. His states of hectic activity alternate with suicidal depression. The doctors say that it may be a case of manic-depressive psychosis...To make things worse, Franz finds that he is in deep financial trouble. He agrees to join businessmen from faraway Kenya in a venture that initially looks very advantageous. When he discovers that he has been conned, quietly supported by his wife he accepts the help of eighteen-year-old Leyla, who has been assisting with English correspondence in his firm. In the company of this young guide, the sick man sets off for Nairobi to try to get his money back.....This psychological drama addresses the question of the fragile border between illness and “normality”. Josef Bierbichler in the leading role is superbly seconded by Hanna Schygulla in the role of Franz’s wife Martha, and Sibel Kekilli as Leyla.

About the director

Hans Steinbichler (b. 1969, Solothurn, Switzerland) studied law in Passau and film at the Munich Film and Television Academy (HFF/M). He made the short films Abstieg (1996) and Mono (1998) and the documentaries Verspiegelte Zeit – Erinnerungen von Angelika Schrobsdorff (1998), Das Auge der Erinnerung – Ansichten von Slawomir Idziak (2000), Die Germaniker – Römisch-Deutsch Karrieren (2000), Der Moralist – Vittorio Hösle entdeckt Amerika (2003) and Inseln im Chiemsee (2003). Three years ago he directed the feature film Hierankl (2003) about a young woman returning to the scenes of her childhood. The film Winter Journey (2006) is his second feature film project.