The filmmaker Lenz has left his native Berlin for the Vosges to research the story behind Georg Büchner’s novel fragment Lenz. But he soon trades the Alsatian landscape for higher altitudes and more emotional territory: a reunion with his estranged wife Natalie and their son Noah in the Swiss Alps. Like his literary counterpart, the modern-day Lenz follows the Romantic motto: Genius writes its own rules. Against a background of kitsch global tourism – provided by the authentic Zermatt locations – Thomas Imbach’s Lenz portrays an unconventional family and a man struggling between euphoria and desperation.
Thomas Imbach is a Swiss maverick director, whose work is visual, edgy and performance driven. In 2007 he founded Okofilm Productions together with director/ producer Andrea Štaka. With Well Done (1994) and Ghetto (1997) he established his trademark audio-visual style based on a combination of cinema-verité camera-work and fast-paced computer controlled editing. His fiction feature films Happiness is a Warm Gun (which was nominated for the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2001), Lenz (2006) and I was a Swiss Banker (2007) all premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival.
"Art can be a risky thing. Mortal danger it can bring." But still... Thanks to an empathetic show of sensitivity and personableness, this film manages to weave those little seemingly banal moments from one man's quaint inner quest into a beautiful visual hymn of veritable life. Touched as a viewer.
We’re showing films by the award-winning independent Swiss filmmaker for a full year.