This year’s HSBC German Film Festival opener is the sweet Big Chill-esque, LONG STORY SHORT. (Feste & Freunde – Ein Hoch auf uns! )
Hilarious and poignant, David Dietl’s ensemble comedy follows the tensions, joys and changing bonds experienced by a close group of friends over three years, as they learn about love, their true selves and living life to the fullest.
LONG STORY SHORT begins at a 2019 New Year’s Party. Long time friends assemble to celebrate and make resolutions. Most of the group have paired up. Ellen is single but having an affair with the already-married Sebastian.
Rolf is also single but starts up a conversation with a guest at the party, a Persian immigrant, Dina. It’s all quite jolly, but there’s friction between older married couple, Mareike and Adam, and lesbian lovers, Maya and Natalie.
As one love blossoms, others seem to have rotted on the vine. Years pass and there is suppuration, separation, and celebration. Marriage and divorce, birth and death.
LONG STORY SHORT is about friendships that falter, friendships that fail, and friendships that prevail.
It is populated by a most charming cast led by Laura Tonke as Ellen in a performance that encompasses all that makes us human. She engages with embarrassment and humiliation, regret and remorse, but also with hope and reconciliation. She brilliantly covers the spectrum from funny and sunny to forlorn and sad.
The women are especially terrific in this film, Antje Traue as Sebastian’s wife, Jasmin Shakeri and Katia Fellin as the lesbian couple navigating parenthood, Pegah Ferydoni as Dina and Annette Frier as Marieke, a character sure to resonate with a large portion of the audience.
LONG STORY SHORT (Feste & Freunde – Ein Hoch auf uns! ) is a feel good movie about the ebb and flow of friendship, forgiveness, and the consoling comfort it affords.
