Fireworks Logo

Trailers...

  • Stress Positions
  • Fisherman's Daughter (The)
  • Monster of Many Noses (The)
  • Shadow of the Sun (The)
  • Lessons of Tolerance
  • Naked Ambition
  • Faceless After Dark
  • Abang Adik
  • Barber
  • Klimakteriet
  • Extremely Unique Dynamic
  • Becoming Karl Lagerfeld
  • Lady Like
  • León
  • I Wish You All the Best
  • I Don't Know Who You Are
  • Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field
  • 5 nanomoles - the Olympic dream of a trans woman
  • Live Like There is Tomorrow
  • Elda and the Monsters
  • Road House
  • Wakhri (One of a Kind)
  • Critical Zone
  • Doppelgängers³
  • Frida
  • Sing Sing
  • Janey
  • Palm Royale
  • Betânia
  • Avant-Drag!
  • Love Alone Can't Make a Child
  • Broken Hearts Trip
  • Vestidas de azul
  • Young Hearts
  • Teaches of Peaches
  • You Promised Me the Sea
  • Reas
  • Malu
  • Lesvia
  • King Baby

Air

Country: Germany, Language: German, 92 mins

Original Title

Luft
  • Director: Anatol Schuster
  • Writer: Anatol Schuster; Britta Schwem
  • Producer: Isabelle Bertolone; Marius Ehlayil

CGiii Comment

There is so much to admire in this debut feature...the cinematography [especially those drone shots!], the music [even the accordion sounds good!], the performances [all plausible, all relatable] and then, there's the direction [slick, imaginative and efficient].

Manja is the perfect, wrong-side-of-the-tracks, ever-smiling, school-girl...who sees the good in just about everyone. Louk, the rebellious and unpredictable, has her issues...the two form a bond. But...will that bond go in the direction that Manja wants it to go? Or, will her desires remain - frustratingly - unrequited?  

Anatol Schuster plays with his audience, it's a little cat-and-mouse...what with all the male suitors popping in and out...and, Louk running hot-and-cold to Manja's - obvious - adoration. It's all very idealistic YAs being irresponsible YAs...with the added addition of good old-country tradition [lovely scenes with Manja's Baboushka] that gives the film a solid grounding and a required context...different generations, different cultures and languages. Different lives...where love is the bond.

A fine film that may have benefited from a stronger ending...but, by no means does it detract from the film, it does add a little mystery. But, for the sake of its target audience...it is a Y[oung]A[dult] film and, perhaps, those young adults would have preferred something more concrete...or, maybe they wouldn't! Just an opinion of an older mind...on an assured debut.


Trailer...

LUFT / AIR Teaser from wirFILM on Vimeo.

The(ir) Blurb...

MANJA (17) lives in a high-rise development on the outskirts of the city. As she rushes in the arms of rebel LOUK (17) who is on the run from hunters in the woods, this is the beginning of a first love. No lies, no traces, no fear - this is Louk's credo. And Manja follows her in quiet surrender. But when Manja realizes that Louk's idealism hides a deep wound left by the loss of her mother, she helps her to say goodbye to the past - and learns to let go herself. AIR is a cinematic poem on the freedom of love and the purity of the heart.

Cast & Characters

Anna Brodskaja-Bomke as Manjas Mutter;
Peter Cieslinski as Schuldirektor;
Jakob D'Aprile as Phil;
Lara Feith as Louk;
Mélanie Fouché as Musiklehrerin;
Paula Hüttisch as Manja;
Marija Kandic as Ewa;
Matthias Neukirch as Dr. Lemont;
Franziska Rieck as Klassenlehrerin;
Melanie Straub as Louks Mutter