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Reifezeit

Time of Maturity
Berlinale Classics 2024
© PROVOBIS FILM / SHAHID SALESS ARCHIVE
Michael (9) is a latchkey kid. He is usually already asleep when his mother comes home late at night, and when he leaves for school in the morning, she, in turn, is still abed. She is a sex worker and cries a lot. Michael is saving up for a bicycle; he runs errands and feels forced to steal from his classmates regularly. Michael is often alone… The Anton Chekhov quote, “I am like the wind blowing across the lonely fields” was the impetus for this impressive sketch of everyday life from the perspective of a child in Berlin’s Wedding district who must prematurely bow to the rules of the grown-up world. With sparse dialogue and in precisely stylised visuals, Time of Maturity is a story of social numbness and marginalisation. Both are accompanied by a generalised, latent sense of violence that, in the end, becomes manifest before the young boy’s eyes.
The restoration was done as part of a transnational project with the goal of making the entire oeuvre of director Sohrab Shahid Saless available again. He worked in Germany beginning in 1974 and died in 1998 in the US.
by Sohrab Shahid Saless
with Mike Henning, Eva Manhardt, Charles Hans Vogt, Eva Lissa, Lothar Köster, Hans Lieven, Sabine Titze, Axel Brehmer Federal Republic of Germany 1976 German 108’ Black/White World premiere of the digitally restored version | DCP: Shahid Saless Archive, Berlin Rating R 18

With

  • Mike Henning
  • Eva Manhardt
  • Charles Hans Vogt
  • Eva Lissa
  • Lothar Köster
  • Hans Lieven
  • Sabine Titze
  • Axel Brehmer

Crew

Directors Sohrab Shahid Saless, Sohrab Shahid Saless
Screenplay Sohrab Shahid Saless, Helga Houzer
Cinematography Ramin Reza Molai
Editing Christel Orthmann
Sound Design Max Galinsky
Sound Gunther Kortwich
Art Director Lothar Tropp
Producer O. E. Kress

World sales

Shahid Saless Archive

Additional information

DCP: Shahid Saless Archive, Berlin

Photos