2025 | Historic Berlinale Debuts
Systemsprenger - Nora Fingscheidt 2019

Scenes from Systemsprenger

Helena Zengel
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© Peter Hartwig / kineo / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer

Helena Zengel, Albrecht Schuch
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© kineo Film / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer

Lisa Hagmeister, Helena Zengel
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© kineo Film / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer

Helena Zengel
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© kineo Film / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer

Helena Zengel
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© kineo Film / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer

Helena Zengel
Systemsprenger | System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
DEU 2019, Competition
© kineo Film / Weydemann Bros. / Yunus Roy Imer
For films by new German filmmakers, the Berlinale often proves to be a springboard into the spotlight of international cinema. 2019 sees the extraordinary take-off of one such work: Nora Fingscheidt’s feature-length debut, Systemsprenger, which thrills the press and audiences alike in the Competition. At the Award Ceremony in the Berlinale Palast, Sandra Hüller, a member of the International Jury that year, presents the director with a Silver Bear for new perspectives in cinematic art. And this is just the start of the film’s triumph: Systemsprenger goes on to be recognised with a further 60 awards and nominations as well as eight Lolas at the 2020 German Film Awards. The young Helena Zengel’s impressive acting performance also reaps rewards: in 2020, she appears alongside Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass’s News of the World.
Systemsprenger tells the story of nine-year-old Benni (Helena Zengel) who, overflowing with spirit and energy, rejects all rules and structures – and gradually falls through the net of the German child and youth welfare system. She is said to be a “system crasher” and is unable to find protection in any foster family, residential group or special school. Benni wants to return to living with her overwhelmed mother, from whom she longs to receive love and security. Only when she meets the anti-violence coach Micha (Albrecht Schuch) does the hope arise that she can finally break through her wall of anger and negative experiences.

Nora Fingscheidt at the Award Ceremony on the stage of th Berlinale Palast in 2019
Trained in documentary filmmaking, and with a sharp psychological instinct, Nora Fingscheidt develops the complex material with great care and researches it for five years. She rehearses for six months with her then nine-year-old leading actor and shoots for another five months. Systemsprenger captures painful topics on screen with great authenticity, and Fingscheidt approaches her injured and vulnerable characters with notable empathy and a sense of responsibility.
The international success of Systemsprenger brings a sudden boost to Nora Fingscheidt’s career. By 2021, she is already making her first English-language feature film, The Unforgivable. It stars Sandra Bullock in the role of a convicted cop killer who, after being released from prison, wants to reunite with her little sister. Another international production, The Outrun, follows in 2024. Here, Saoirse Ronan plays the biologist Rona who leaves London after a destructive bout of binge drinking and returns to her home on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Her love for the raw nature and wildlife of her birthplace helps her on the hard path back to sobriety.

With leading actor Saoirse Ronan at the premiere of The Outrun at the Zoo Palast
Even before Systemsprenger, Nora Fingscheidt’s name is drawing attention when she is a guest in the erstwhile Berlinale section Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2018 with her documentary Ohne diese Welt. Her graduation film from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg observes the life of a Mennonite community with German roots living in Argentina – a group of people who seem to be stuck in the 18th century. And Fingscheidt receives the Kompagnon Fellowship, jointly awarded by Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino, in 2017 for the yet-to-be filmed screenplay for Systemsprenger. In 2024, The Outrun is the director’s most recently selected work for the Berlinale’s Panorama section.