Catskin (Alle Sorten Rauh)

German-Filipino filmmaker Ina Luchsperger constructs a poignant family portrait centered on a teenager growing up in rural Bavaria, considered as the economic powerhouse of Germany. The 13-year-old lives on an old farm with his eccentric grandmother, surrounded by her colony of cats. His father is a regular visitor to the farm, committed to raising his son and sharing his worldview with him.

On their doorstep passes a freeway that connects this region to Eastern Europe and beyond. The film touches on the boy’s coming-of-age and his gradual enthrallment with political rhetoric. As the memories of the past that shaped contemporary Europe fade, his adolescent world is increasingly visited by the spectres of German history. The film is not only concerned with the interlacing of past and present, but also with the connection between personal and political time. It gradually uncovers how history haunts our daily lives, makes itself felt in words and gestures, even in the act of retreating into one’s own universe, one’s own mythology. How history finds ways to ventriloquize our existence and our relationship with the outside world.