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The Unpolished

Die Unerzogenen

Germany

2007

95 Min
Color
1.85:1
German, French, English
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
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DIR Pia Marais

PROD Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel

SCR Horst Markgraf, Pia Marais

DP Diego Martínez Vignatti

CAST Ceci Schmitz-Chuh, Birol Ünel, Pascale Schiller, Georg Friedrich, Joana Preiss, Joseph Malerba, David Könen, Dieudonné Kabongo

ED Daniela Boch, Mona Bräuer

PROD DES Petra Barchi

MUSIC Yoyo Röhm, Jochen Arbeit, Horst Markgraf

SOUND Andreas Hildebrandt

Rotterdam (Competition): Tiger Award, Karlovy Vary (Forum of Independents), Chicago

Synopsis

Stevie, a precocious 14-year-old girl must cope with the instabilities of her immoderate parents. When they decide to move to a small provincial town in Germany, Stevie attempts to slip into a normal life. Whilst her parents playfully escape their responsibilities, Stevie tries to make a good impression in town, spreading stories of grandeur and claiming to be the daughter of a diplomat. She makes progress. Yet the good weather doesn’t last and before long, she discovers that her parents have once more resorted to illegal means, as a way of supporting their leisurely lifestyle. As friends and hangers-on of her parents fill their new home, the chaos continually mounts. It is in this atmosphere of physical and emotional destruction, that Stevie must now start to define herself and perhaps even break free. “Die Unerzogenen” tells the story of a girl caught up in a complicated adult world. A world in which the child/parent roles have been washed away and responsibilities are thrown back and forth. —Pandora Filmproduktion

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Arsaib

29Jul11

Featuring a nuanced, knowing performance by its young protagonist, a teenager attempting to navigate the treacherous broken world around her, this highly auspicious debut feature by the South African-born Pia Marais seems as personal and sordidly authentic as Lucrecia Martel's La ciénaga.

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W184

ND/NF 2011. Pia Marais's "At Ellen's Age"

By David Hudson on March 23, 2011

"The sometimes hard-to-distinguish variances between being caged and allowed to roam free inform the trials and tribulations of the middle

read article
W184

Tuesday Foreign Region DVD Report: "Die Unerzogenen" ("The Unpolished") (Pia Marais, 2006)

By Glenn Kenny on November 15, 2010

I don't know about you, but I get a little squirrelly at the term "boutique label." Don't you? Sounds kind of, not to put too fine a point

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An astonishingly promising debut feature

By Thorste​n on March 27, 2010

Consequently told from the point of view of 14 year-old Stevie (newcomer Ceci Chu, who is a pleasure to watch), in elliptical structure with a camera that dives deep into situations and social reality…  read review

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