Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! 2007 / Hotel Very Welcome / Germany 2006
Five Westerners wander round Asia in search of themselves, the “real” Asia, and escape from problems back home in Hotel Very Welcome. Kept afloat by a bouncy soundtrack, likeable performances and a docu-like feel for backpacker India and Thailand, feature is the first by Sonja Heiss, who shows real promise for lightly comic, observational filmmaking.
Five westerners wander round Asia in search of themselves, the “real” Asia and escape from problems back home in Hotel Very Welcome, an episodic charmer that’s as laid back as the protags would like to be. Kept afloat by a bouncy soundtrack, likable performances and a docu-like feel for backpacker India and Thailand, feature is the first by Munich film school grad Sonja Heiss, who shows real promise for lightly comic, observational filmmaking. Quintet of characters are spread over two countries and hardly cross paths, but by cutting back and forth between their stories pic creates a kind of ensemble movie. Though always lightly comic, film acutely reps a cross-section of westerners who treat Asia as an exotic pleasure park or place to escape.
90 min / Color, 35 mm
International premiere
Director Sonja Heiss
/ Screenplay Sonja Heiss, Nikolai von Graevenitz
/ Dir. of Photography Nikolai von Graevenitz
/ Music The Festival, Christian Garcia
/ Editor Natali Barrey, Vincent Pluss, Patrick Lambertz
/ Producer Janine Jackowski, Maren Ade, Sonja Heiss
/ Production Komplizen Film
/ Cast Ricky Champ, Gareth Llewelyn, Eva Löbau, Svenja Steinfelder
/ Contact Scalpel Films, Komplizen Film GmbH
Scalpel Films
rue de la Chine 38, 750 20, Paris
France
Phone: +33 1 436 640 30
Fax: +33 1 436 686 00
E-mail: [email protected]
Komplizen Film GmbH
Hagelberger Str. 57, 10965, Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 307 889 3340
E-mail: [email protected]
Sonja Heiss
Film Director
Nikolai von Graevenitz
Director of Photography
Mariëtte Rissenbeek
Festival Organizer
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