Directing
A bar full of people talking about Volker Spengler. HIGHFALUTIN is an attempt to create such a utopia, a simple "what if."
After the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Roman, a struggling artist from Kyiv, has to grapple with wartime trauma, alcoholism and an advancing midlife crisis. Seeking comfort and desperately wanting to leave his wartorn homeland, he learns of a an exciting new job opportunity, a recreation of three famous political assasinations pivotal to Ukrainian history.
In this adaption of Louis Paul Boon’s novel, Hans Broich ingeniously questions an individual’s interpretational sovereignty and in this way, attacks the mechanisms of patriarchy. Told is the story of a love triangle between husband, wife, and servant, whereby their contradictory interpretations of events as well as references to the film shooting generate a multitude of perspectives and “truths.” A film that shifts the view of the world.
Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave stuck like a knife in the heart of Europe. Camera in hand, the filmmaker retraces his grandfather’s steps. As he strolls along, one encounter follows another, fragments of lives suspended in the shadow of war and censorship.
