Film still ‘Fastnacht ‘, 2012, 26’

Position
1st AC

Context
Promotional short for fashion designer label the fORS, collection 2012

Year
2012

Details
Fiction, 16mm, 26’

in collaboration with
the fORS

Production
De Man & De Vos ; the fORS

Description
Citygirls Anna and Cornelia visit their birthplace Überlingen at the Bodensee to celebrate the yearly carnival.

After a seemingly intense Fastnacht they wake up in a little Badehaus on the lake. They can’t remember how they got there, they can’t recollect the events of the night. The day after they stroll around some desolate spots in a mood of unclearity and fatigue, trying to reconstruct their nightly wanderings. They meet an old friend, Andreas, who seems to be in touch with the magical side of life.

Precoccupied by their own disorientation, Anna and Cornelia hardly seem to notice the handful of oddities taking place in the background : There’s a dead boy in a sharkfin suit lying on the shore ; a girl performs a personal mourning ritual for him, accompanied by a solemn drummer and napoleon-like trumpeter. There is also an grim figure, the Hänsele, who performs an ecstatic dance on a pier.

With the sounds of the trumpet and the drum echoeing over the water, Anna and Cornelia accept that some facts and pasts will remain in the subconscious. They surrender to the beauty of the lake, and it’s magical surroundings.