Zu Weit Weg
Crew
Director – Sarah Winkenstette
Screenplay – Susanne Finken
Camera – Monika Plura
Editor – Nicole Kortlüke
Sound – Jonathan Schorr
Cast
Yoran Leicher, Sobhi Awad, Anna König, Andreas Nickl, Anna Böttcher, Petra Nadolny, Tobias Schäfer, Julia Schmitt, Soufjan Ibrahim
Production: Weydemann Bros. (Berlin/Köln), in co-Production with Orange Roughy Filmproduktion (Bonn), in association with the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) (Hamburg)
Film is provided by the film archive of Goethe-Institut Georgien.
Synopsys
With the last game-deciding goal that the eleven-year-old Ben manages to score for his football club, it is over. His family is relocating because an energy company is soon going to raze Ben's home village in West Rhineland, including the football field, to make way for a lignite strip mine. The family of the same-aged Tariq is from Aleppo, whence they fled to Germany because of the Syrian civil war. For the boys, it is a new beginning in an unfamiliar city: both are now the suspiciously-eyed "newbies" in the class and both like to play football – and at the club, they're competitors for the position of front striker. But their initial rivalry gradually grows into a close friendship, and an adventurous trip to Ben's now-deserted home village on the edge of the pit welds them even more together! The "big" themes of climate change and migration form the background of the sensitive, exciting and entertainingly-told narrative of the debut director, Sarah Winkenstette. A movie about what it's like to find your place in a new and foreign place, the universally applicable narrative deals with deracination, friendship, and the difficulties and opportunities of new beginnings.
