Lucie & Vera

This story included everything I like to see on screen, the motivation behind my films, what gives me the strength to stick with an idea for years: utopia, rebellion, and a deep, unexpected love.

Two girls in a home for troubled juveniles. One becomes pregnant and wants to terminate the pregnancy at all cost. The other wants nothing more than a family of her own and persuades the pregnant girl to carry her child to term and hand it over to her. They hide together in an apartment until the birth. Afterward, neither wants to leave and abandon the child to the other. A desperate and dangerous struggle ensues, until finally the two realize that neither of them needs to leave; that together, they make up a new mini family.

The utopia of a family that comes together because it feels right, untroubled by social conventions.

My sister witnessed this true story at a home for juveniles and told me about it; I just couldn’t let it go.

As a self-taught filmmaker, with no network at that time, I lacked the resources to embark on making a feature film. However, I was able to use reference material from my short film Doris to make another short film, Lucie & Vera, bringing this story to life and so finding partners and funding. Hof invited me to show the short film in 2004: in the Cafe der Tanzschule, I met editor Andrea Hanke from WDR for the first time – she watched it and asked me to send her the script. This laid the foundation for my debut Was am Ende zählt, which premiered at the