Movies

The German movie “24 weeks” in the Berlinale competition

This Film, no one can escape. Director Anne Zohra Berrached tells the story of a couple faced with a difficult decision. In the lead role shines Julia Jentsch.

And, once again, a Film of the Berlinale film festival-audience with an intensity in his spell, which is not often found in normal Kinoalltag. Only a day after the Italian documentary “Fuocoammare” about the refugee situation in Lampedusa, surprised all people, the German competition entry “24 weeks” with a sense of urgency, the many spectators speechless made.

“24 weeks”, the higher the closing film of the young Director Anne Zohra Berrached, gave the Berlinale audience an immersive cinematic experience. Berrached tells the story of the young Couple, Astrid (Julia Jentsch) and Markus (Bjarne Mädel), the during a Routine examination to learn that their child is disabled can be. The Doctors predict Down syndrome.

The results of the second study are yet to transpire…

After the parents already have a daughter, first for the child, you will be in a second investigation with a more severe malformation of the child’s face: heart disease would go directly after the birth, several operations are necessary. More secure medical predictions can also the specialists in the hospital did not deliver

Julia Jentsch and Bjarne girl in the “24 weeks”

Astrid and mark are faced with the question: are you Supposed to be a Spätabtreibung decide? And how do you deal with the then potential decision, that the child then even before birth in the womb with a potassium chloride syringe killed would have to be?

Director Anne Zohra Berrached has painstakingly researched for months with the difficult matter. Abortions in Germany according to the 12. Week only legal if a medical or criminological indication. Meet these things, then is a termination of pregnancy up to birth. “The ‘fate’ is an ethical, legal, philosophical question,” says the Director: “parents have a choice, you decide over life and death.” What, however, you do not have to be a choice, prior to this decision to withdraw.

Convincing Interaction between professionals and Amateurs

In the course of their Research, has Berrached with the Affected person and Doctors, with medical specialists and other experts worked. The medical staff in the Film are not actors in the play, but by Doctors. This mixture of fiction and reality is strengthened by the fact that on the Set, much was improvised, wodruch “24 weeks” is still an authenticity wins.

Also for the nine-year-old daughter, the Situation is difficult – with her father (Bjarne Mädel)

“The shooting was my primary goal, the game of the laity and Profidarsteller invisible, real and authentic”, says the young Director. That is, it succeeded. With incredible intensity, arousal, Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Mädel, the other actors, as well as the laity, the figures on the canvas of life. So in any scene, the feeling here is going to have a extreme medical and human emergency situation, only for a Film or television audiences vorexerziert. You tried your story in meticulous accuracy, directness and force to tell the Director.

So the audience already after a few minutes of the movie with the question to deal, as he himself in such a difficult Situation would react. “’24 weeks’ confronted the audience with a question, the only answer for themselves,” the Director is convinced.

Berrached: “the extremes, the extreme decisions”

While the filmmaker is room for both positions. For those who have a Spätabbruch tend, as in the Film, Jentsch embodied mother, but also for those who human life above all else. “Even the spectators, for have decided that abortions decline, the movie theater, a woman emotional consequences, which does exactly what you might fear,” said Berrached. The Film place a extreme situation, to an extreme decision.

The Couple holds together – even in the difficult Situation

Actress Julia Jentsch emphasized that it was important that talking about the issue. “24 weeks” dealing with a Subject that is still often taboo. We must, with openness to talk about – and you should definitely try to understand this develop – for whatever to the affected people to decide.

“I am interested in the moral conflict”

“The technical progress and the increasingly better diagnostic result, that we sometimes face decisions for which there are no moral guidelines,” adds Anne Zohra Berrached: “I am interested in the moral conflict as a result of our modern medical world.”

Without a doubt: it is unlikely a viewer give the Film cold. The young female Director for your difficult subject also have a matching cinematic Form has found, is their high costs. For the race to the bears within the competition of the 66. Berlinale, there is a “Fuocoammare” now with “24 weeks”, another hot candidate.