SYNOPSIS

Marion experiences a day. It could be yesterday, but not tomorrow, because at the end of the day she is dead, stumbled in a moment of routine. A sober view at a person’s last day, accompanied by another divergent perception of the events and the question of the significance of a single day.

"Unlike the ghost stories we know, the present in Tom Otte’s film GESTERN, ICH DENKE AN MORGEN is not haunted by the past but by the future. The unpredictable interferes with the protagonist’s everyday life. Rather than large future prospects more ordinary things are at its centre: An upcoming doctor’s appointment, the idea of a trip to Amsterdam, the renovation of a room. Between microwaved fish and checking the calendar, cleaning dishes and telephone calls, the protagonist’s actions are directed towards a future that seems planable and yet is unpredictable. The inevitable finally befalls her quite unexpectedly. One wrong step and she stumbles out of her life and out of the film. The actual coincidence of this event becomes a reflection on storytelling itself. While the character in the film unsuspectingly goes about her daily routines, the film knows its outcome from the very beginning. What happens to the protagonist seemingly by chance is already fixed as a narrative. The knowledge of her imminent demise haunts the film and acquires its own cinematic level, manifesting itself in a camera view that is detached from the everyday narrative of its character. Again and again the camera moves through the family home and finally also takes in the place where the misfortune will occur. The eeriness of the film is the narrative itself. It emerges from hiding, unnoticed by the character, who is as much at the mercy of its construction as life is at the mercy of death." - by André Siegers

SCREENINGS

Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis (world premiere), Germany 2024

Shortfilm
20 minutes | Germany 2024

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WHO

starring ELSIE DE BRAUW, GOYA REGO & TAMARA JASMIN TESSIN

script, direction & camera TOM OTTE montage & directors assistant SALKA TIZIANA set design MARA PIELER gaffer MARVIN HESSE electrician LEVENTE PAVELKA costume CLARISSA FREIBERG sound recording & production managment KARSTEN KRAUSE camera assistant ANASTASIIA GAVRILOVA colors STEFFEN PAUL sound design JAKOB SPENGEMANN sound mix FELIX ROGGEL graphics CASPAR NEWBOLT

produced by FÜNFERFILM UG

funded by BKM (Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien)