The 48th Hof International Film Festival opens with WE ARE YOUNG. WE ARE STRONG.

The 48th Hof International Film Festival will open this year on 21 October 2014 with Burhan Qurbani’s film WE ARE YOUNG. WE ARE STRONG.

WE ARE YOUNG. WE ARE STRONG. by Burhan Qurbani

Rostock-Lichtenhagen, 1992. In the desolate housing developments the youth just hangs around and doesn’t know what to do with themselves. Bored during the day, they look forward to the nightly clashes with the police and foreigners. Stefan (Jonas Nay), the son of a local politician (Devid Striesow), roams around aimlessly with his circle of friends. The situation simmers, but just up the boiling point. Unemployed and with nothing to do, the friends find themselves as the target of smaller and larger cruelties. Love is interchangeable, friendship and loyalty are only the accessories of an artificial ideology.

Lien (Trang Le Hong) also lives in the housing development with her brother and sister-inlaw, in the so-called “Sunflower House”, inhabited by Vietnamese refugees. She thinks she has found a new home in Germany and wants to stay even after the fall of the Wall. But her brother wants to go back home, he notices the increasing hostilities and is afraid for his family’s future.

It is the 24th of August when the stories of these people collide: Stefan and his friends lead a riot at the “Sunflower House” until finally Molotov cocktails are thrown while an inactive crowd simply stands around and watches the arson. What unites them all is the desire for a place to call home, love and recognition, alternatives in life, and their dream of happiness. Their conflicts and catastrophes mirror a society that hits a brick wall on a mild summer night.

With courage, sensitivity and sensibility

After SHAHADA (In Competition, Berlinale 2010) WE ARE YOUNG. WE ARE STRONG is the second feature film of Burhan Qurbani, who was born in Germany in 1980 as the son of Afghani parents. With sensitivity and sensibility, Qurbani traces the fine line between the loss of identity and the resulting escape into an ideology, which promises supposed perspectives. With courage, the director presents the picture of a lost generation and the moral failure of society in its responsibility to help people. Burhan Qurbani put together a strong cast: in the leading roles with Jonas Nay, Joel Basman, Devid Striesow, Saskia Rosendahl, Trang Le Hong, Thorsten Merten and many others.

WE ARE YOUNG. WE ARE STRONG. is a film with more current relevance than ever.

The film is a production by UFA Fiction/Ludwigsburg in co-production with ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel, in cooperation with ARTE, cine plus Filmproduktion/Berlin and UFA Cinema/Potsdam. Funded by Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Nordmedia, BKM, and the Jerusalem International Film Lab. Zorro Filmverleih will release the film in German cinemas in January 2015.

Screenings:

703 | Tue. | 19.30 | Scala
103 | Tue. | 20.00 | Central
812 | Wed. | 14.45 | Regina
643 | Sat. | 16.00 | Club