Finsterworld

Finsterworld is a 2013 German motion picture cringe comedy drama directed by Frauke Finsterwalder, her debut feature film. Co-written by Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht, it follows interconnected, parallel stories over the course of one day in Germany.
The title Finsterworld is a play on Finsterwalder's surname, which can be translated to English as "resident of the dark forest".

Premise

Finsterworld is an ensemble piece with twelve main characters who are gradually shown to interconnect with each other. These include a pedicurist, three generations of the Sandberg family, and a documentarist and her policeman boyfriend, who is secretly a furry.

Cast

Christoph Bach as Lehrer Nickel
Margit Carstensen as Frau Sandberg
Jakub Gierszał as Maximillian Sandberg
Corinna Harfouch as Inga Sandberg
Sandra Hüller as Franziska Feldenhoven
Carla Juri as Natalie
Johannes Krisch as Einsiedler
Michael Maertens as Claude Petersdorf
Dieter Meier as Furrier
Max Pellney as Jonas
Leonard Scheicher as Dominik
Bernard Schütz as Georg Sandberg
Ronald Zehrfeld as Tom
Production and release

The film was shot at various locations in Bavaria and Tanzania.
Its world premiere was at the 2013 Montréal World Film Festival.
It opened in German cinemas in October 2013, in Austria in January 2014 and in Switzerland in March 2014.

Soundtrack

The film features an original score by composer Michaela Melián, singer of the German new wave band FSK, and is bookended by the song "The Wind" by Cat Stevens.

Critical response

The Hollywood Reporter praised its "sophisticated screenplay", "beautiful camerawork" and "very solid line-up of actors". Die Welt called it a "masterpiece", while Letterboxd writes "Somewhere between a sylvan paradise lost and a realpolitik nightmare come true lies Finsterworld's Germany. Its fantastical inhabitants feel so familiar, it's uncanny. They're neighbors, fathers and boys you went to school with. It hits too close to home. Perhaps we should bury that movie deep in the forest where nobody will ever find it. Or perhaps we should allow its haunting veracity to breathe."

Awards

It won the Bronze Zenith at the 2013 Montréal World Film Festival, as well as the 2013 TV-Spielfilm-Award at Germany’s Cologne Conference. At the 2013 Zurich Film Festival, it won the Critics' Choice award, and prize for the best German-language feature film. The film was nominated for best fiction debut at Camerimage festival in Poland. It has also garnered nominations for best feature film debut at Munich’s 2013 Filmfest München and three nominations for the 2013 Preis der deutschen Filmkritik, winning best German screenplay, as well as five nominations for the Deutscher Filmpreis, with Sandra Hüller winning best supporting actress. In 2014, it won best female directed film at Edinburgh International Film Festival, as well as a nomination for the Fipresci Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival.