The Unpolished

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, 2006, 95 min
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Stevie, a precocious 14-year-old girl, is forced to share the nomadic ways of her fairly atypical parents. When they decide to move to a small provincial town in Germany, Stevie attempts to start a normal life. Whilst her parents escape their responsibilities as usual, Stevie tries to make a good impression in town. And she makes progress. Yet the good weather doesn’t last and, before long, she discovers that her parents have once more resorted to illegal means as a way of supporting their leisurely lifestyle. As friends and hangers-on of her parents fill their new home, the chaos starts to worsen. It is in this atmosphere of physical and emotional decay that Stevie must now start to define herself and perhaps even break free. A powerful debut about a family where the roles of parents and their children are reversed, where it’s hard to decide who is looking after whom.

About the director

Pia Marais (b. 1971, Johannesburg) grew up in South Africa, Sweden and Spain. She studied sculpture and then photography at art academies in London, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf before she turned to film at the Deutsche Film und Fernseh Akademie (DFFB) in Berlin. After several jobs in the film business as casting director, assistant director, writer and director of three short films, she made her first feature-length film The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen, WPRO Tiger Award at IFF Rotterdam 2007).