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Geranien

On Mothers and Daughters
Perspektive Deutsches Kino 2023
© Claudia Schroeder
Actor Nina travels to her home town in Germany’s Ruhr region for her grandmother’s funeral and discovers that her childhood home has remained virtually unchanged. The canary still chirps in the living room, her mother still sits in the kitchen pitting kilos of plums from the garden, and her father still occasionally indulges in a whisky from the “bottom shelf next to the digestif glasses”. But when the date for the funeral is postponed, tensions flare up again between the pragmatic mother and her cosmopolitan daughter who now lives in a large European city and considers the offer of a role in German TV soap Traumschiff (Dreamboat) to be beneath her. And kindly old grandma is no longer there to cushion such conflicts.
Directed with gentle humour, DFFB graduate Tanja Egen’s perceptive feature debut is much more than just a tale of such classic family problems as repressed emotions, things that remain unspoken and a growing sense of distance. Rich in detail, Geranien is an affectionate observation of the complex relationships that exist between daughters and mothers – no matter how old a daughter and a mother may be. Loss, it seems, is a universal feeling.
by Tanja Egen
with Friederike Becht, Marion Ottschick, Peer Martiny, Jasmina Musić, Stefanie Meier, Aleksandra Ćorović, Adi Hrustemović, Oliver Möller, Bruno Kirchhof Germany 2023 German 83’

With

  • Friederike Becht (Nina)
  • Marion Ottschick (Konnie)
  • Peer Martiny (Harald)
  • Jasmina Musić (Karo)
  • Stefanie Meier (Marion)
  • Aleksandra Ćorović (Chrissie)
  • Adi Hrustemović (Deniz)
  • Oliver Möller (Franz)
  • Bruno Kirchhof (Alfred)

Crew

Director Tanja Egen
Screenplay Tanja Egen, Esther Preussler
Cinematography Claudia Schröder
Editing Nicolas Dusollier
Music Paul Eisenach, Jonas Hofer
Sound Design Bernd Biemüller
Sound Daria Somesan
Production Design Jana Donis, Hella Vohrmann
Costumes Eugenia Giesbrecht
Make-Up Nina Suchanoff
Assistant Director Paula Fritze
Casting Tanja Egen
Production Manager Sina Lübke
Producer Catherine Ann Berger
Executive Producer Andreas Louis
Co-Producers Jakob Zimmermann, Tanja Egen
Co-Production ZDF Mainz

Produced by

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB)

https://www.dffb.de https://www.dffb.de

Photos

Tanja Egen

© Claudia Schröder

She was born and grew up in the Ruhr region of Germany and studied philosophy, art history and theatre at the Freie Universität Berlin as well as film directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. Geranien is her graduation film and her debut feature.

Filmography

2013 Together; short film 2016 Funke; short film 2017 Der Gesellschafter; short film 2023 Geranien (On Mothers and Daughters)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023