Gleich zurück (Be Right Back)

Narrative Feature Film, 2022

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Synopsis

A small group of people live isolated in an abandoned vacation resort in the forest. Their absurd daily routine is thrown into disarray by the arrival of a mysterious stranger. When it turns out that their food supply has disappeared, the unsettled residents must set out into the forest in search of something to eat. But the group encounters unforeseen obstacles—or is the forest laying false trails? Frauke Havemann’s new film BE RIGHT BACK humorously illuminates the darker side of human nature in the twilight of the forest.

World Premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, January 27th 2022 in the Breakouts section.

We are a Semi-Finalist in the CLIMAX Festival Internacional de Cinema Independiente 2024.

We will be screening in Potsdam, Germany at the Made in Potsdam 2024 festival at Fabrik on January 20th 2024, at 21:00. Tickets and info available here: Fabrik Potsdam

We were in competition for BEST FEATURE FILM at the International Distopya Film Festival in Istanbul, Turkey! The film was screened on Saturday, June 3rd 2023 at 14:30 at the AKM Yeşilçam Cinema.

We were an official selection and won BEST DRAMA in the Summer Edition (2022) of the Košice International Film Festival, were nominated for Best Feature Film in the Annual Aarhus Film Festival 2022 and received an honorable mention in both the Big Apple Film Festival 2022 and the LA Underground Film Forum 2022.

Gleich zurück has been selected for the achtung berlin – new berlin film award film festival 2022 in the section Berlin Spotlights!

There will be three screenings in Berlin with a Q&A after each.

Thursday | 21.4 | 17:30 | Babylon Kino 1 | German Premiere
Friday | 22.4 | 20:30 | Acud Kino 1
Saturday | 23.4 | 22:30 | Babylon Kino 2

 

We are excited and honored to announce that our world premiere will be at the Slamdance Film Festival 2022 (in the Breakouts section.)

The festival has been moved online and runs from January 27th, 9am PST through February 6th.
There will be a live online Q&A with Frauke Havemann & Eric Schefter on Sunday, January the 30th, at 12pm PST / 3pm EST on the Slamdance Channel.

Effi Rabsilber was nominated for the Slamdance Acting Award!

„A confidently executed slow-burn of a film,…“

AWFJ.org - Be Right Back (Slamdance 2022) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

„…she turns her surrealistic vision to the experience of lockdown during the pandemic and how it creates isolation and perhaps madness…“

Journal of Religion & Film - Be Right Back Review by John C. Lyden - PDF

„German director Frauke Havemann presents her new feature film Be Right Back,…“

Cineuropa - Interview with Frauke Havemann by Teresa Vena

A nature experience can be something beautiful, one can surrender to it, revel in it. But…

For Be Right Back I wondered about how Romanticism and what Germans call “Naturerlebnis” (experience of nature) could take a different turn…

On March 17th, 2019 I traveled with my Dramaturg Rose Beermann to Kastavensee in Brandenburg, Germany, to do research for a new project. The spread of Covid-19 had just begun in Germany. We discussed until the last moment whether it was still appropriate to travel. The entire trip had a surreal character. The small villages we passed through were empty, there was hardly any traffic. However when we reached our destination, a small vacation camp in the forest and got out of the car, we felt happy: the deep green of the forest, the smell of pine needles, the fresh air, the glint of the lake through the trees…. and no other people.

But the mood changed. Every day, every hour, new news about the spread of the virus rushed into the forest idyll via our smartphones and laptops. We took long walks through the forest and talked. Things started to feel strange. The environment seemed to become more and more intense, as if on a trip: We feel the movement of the crowns far above us; a few birds chirp, then they stop; a light wind blows, the trees crack and crunch; the sky is overcast; an uncanny atmosphere surrounds us; we feel very small.

Clearly we were starting to project our moods on our surroundings. An intense experience can sensitize our own senses to such an extent that the world around us becomes increasingly blurred. If we are then in an environment like the forest, which seems to follow its own rules and remains inscrutable in many ways, our imagination can give this forest undreamt of dimensions and powers. But the truth is of course, that it does not care about our personal drama and abstractions. Later a vodka shot helped us to change perspective and we had a laugh about ourselves.

The experience in Kastavensee stayed strongly with me. Back in Berlin, during the subsequent lockdown, I observed how the perception of time seemed to change. In those strange isolated times, trying to keep some kind of normality and structure to their lives, people developed new routines for themselves. These (non-)activities started to interest me.

In my first feature film Weather House, a small group of people live isolated in a house as the effects of climate change make it impossible for them to leave it. In the concept of Be Right Back (human) isolation plays a role again but I wanted to lure the characters into the forest–a cultivated forest, not a wilderness. The wilderness, if there is one, is only inside the heads of the characters. The motto was: the forest does not care about human drama.

I set out to develop a film in which the characters‘ idea of holding onto what was once „normality“ blends right over into absurdity. Where 5 characters live isolated in a vacation camp surrounded by the forest. How and why the five got there was irrelevant. I was not interested in the characters‘ personal backgrounds but in the structures they had built for themselves. Like little parallel running universes. Nobody explains himself/herself, nobody has to explain himself/herself. These five increasingly get overwhelmed by their self-chosen exile and what they project onto the forest (and onto each other).

In a state of not-more and not-yet, the question is what options we have for action.

Iris Boss

Born in Switzerland, Iris studied acting at the University of the Arts, Berlin, from 1999 to 2003. In 2001 and 2002 she was awarded acting scholarships by Migros and the Ernst Göhner Foundation. Since then she has appeared in numerous theater productions. In addition, she acts for film and television productions. Among others she had a leading role in the feature film The Taste of Life (Cannes Film Festival, 2018). Iris can be heard in radio plays (e.g. RBB) and book readings and also works as a dubbing and voice-over artist.

Inga Dietrich

is an independent actress, living in Berlin since 1990. In addition to theatre work in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Vienna, she has been involved in numerous readings and audioplays. A mother of two, she has also appeared in many films and television series since 1999. Among others she starred in Sylke Enders’ Kroko, Frauke Havemann’s Weather House and in the TV series In the Face of Crime.  Since 2001 she has also worked as a dramaturg and director, developing documentary theater pieces for the stage.

Effi Rabsilber

Based in Berlin and Athens, since her studies in Munich she has performed in theater, cinema, television and radio. She has played in the films of greek director Yorgos Zois, visual artist John Bock and georgian director Bidzina Kanchaveli. She participated as a performer and creator in productions in various state theaters as well as in the independent theater scene in Germany and Greece. Recently she collaborated with choreographer Ioannis Mandafounis at the National Theater in Athens and in Geneva.

Jack Rath

is an award winning Australian Swiss filmmaker living in Berlin. After graduating in Media Arts at RMIT Melbourne, Jack has gone on to work as writer, director and editor for film and television. Alongside this, he acts and performs voiceover for diverse productions. Jack appeared in Havemann’s Weather House which premiered at Slamdance 2017, and now returns in Be Right Back.

Poul Storm

born in 1957, is an experienced actor who has played in many films and series. He is active in both the German and Danish markets. Known for his appearances in the films Sukkerfar (2017), Unit One – Die Spezialisten (2000) and Skytten (2013) he also had roles, among others, in the films and TV series Sagittarius, Hvidstensgruppen/this life and Rejseholdet/Unit One. He most recently appeared in Then You Run, Be Right Back, Fucking Bornholm, Warrior, and Despite.

Director / Producer / Writer / Editor

Frauke Havemann is a Berlin based filmmaker, theater director and choreographer. ON AIR is her production company (Film/Video/Performance), founded together with Eric Schefter in 2002. Havemann’s work includes films and live projects which explore the intersections of performance, theater, film and media art. Her first feature film Weather House premiered at the 2017 Slamdance Film Festival (Official Selection in the Narrative Competition), travelled throughout the film festival circuit and is now streaming on Amazon Prime, sooner.de and Vimeo VOD. In 2020 she finished the mid-length essay film The Woman Who Swallowed Her House. Her second feature film Gleich zurück (Be Right Back) premieres at Slamdance 2022 (Breakouts section).

Producer / Editor

Eric Schefter began working as an editor in film and television in New York after receiving a B.A. in Film and Video from NYU. Additionally in the early 90s he cofounded four intermedia performance groups including 77 Hz and The Luminists. In 1997 he moved to Berlin. Some of his credits as an editor include the feature films Gendernauts (Monika Treut), The Nomi Song, We are Twisted Fucking Sister (Andrew Horn) and Sarita (Sergio Basso). Since 2002, he has worked with Frauke Havemann on live performances, installations and the films Weather House (co-director), The Woman Who Swallowed Her House (camera) and Be Right Back (producer).

Writer / Dramaturg

Peter Stamer is a Berlin-based German theatre maker and author working in the international context of contemporary performing arts. His performances and works for stage, radio and public space have been presented in theatres, cinemas, museums and cities worldwide.

Writer

Matthias Wittekindt is a former architect who started to work in the realm of theater in 1988. After initial successes in German, Austrian and Swiss theaters, Wittekindt decided to give up his work as an architect in favour of literary work including theater pieces, radio plays and books. In addition to writing episodes for the ARD radio series Tatort (Crime Scene), he is an award winning author published by the Nautilus, Heyne and Kampa publishing companies.

Cinematographer

Joji Koyama is a filmmaker, animator and graphic artist. His award winning films, animations and music videos have screened internationally. In 2015 he published a book of visual stories Plassein, and in 2017 completed his first feature length film Kuro, written and directed with Tujiko Noriko.

Costume Designer

Regina Gyr is from Zürich and studied acting before completing a degree in Theatre Direction at the HFMT Hamburg. Since 2006 she has been based in Berlin and works as a freelance director in performing arts. Regina is a founding member of the Kostümkollektiv Berlin – a costume fund for the independent arts and is active as a costume designer for film.

Dramaturg

Rose Beermann studied Cultural Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). In 2013 she completed the masters program Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. Since then she has worked as a freelance choreographer, director and dramaturg in Berlin. Her own works and collaborations have been shown in various German theaters and international festivals. As a research assistant she also works for Prof. Dr. Bojana Kunst at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies.

Music

Boris Hauf Multi-Instrumentalist, composer, producer and performer. He composes for large and small ensembles, performance artists, film, radio, soloists, video and installation art. More than 50 releases on vinyl, CD, tape and online. He is the keyboarder/multi-instrumentalist of legendary Austrian rock band Naked Lunch, owns and runs the record label shameless.

Production Manager

Sasha Schlegel is a freelance production manager based in Berlin, holding a Master’s Degree in International Business Administration from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Besides collaborating with dance and performance artists such as Christina Ciupke and Darko Dragičević, they are working as a production manager for the residency program and the Taking Things Apart festival at ausland Berlin. Furthermore Saskia is a co-founder of ‘tanz&tanz’, a collective for production and dramaturgy in contemporary dance.

Cast in alphabetical order

Iris Boss
Inga Dietrich
Effi Rabsilber
Jack Rath
Poul Storm

 

Crew

Director
Frauke Havemann

Script
Frauke Havemann
Peter Stamer
Matthias Wittekindt

Producers
Frauke Havemann
Eric Schefter

Cinematographer
Joji Koyama

Music
Boris Hauf

Costume Design
Regina Gyr

Editing
Frauke Havemann
Eric Schefter

Dramaturgy
Rose Beermann
Peter Stamer

Production Manager
Sasha Schlegel

Location Sound
Jack Rath
Eric Schefter

Catering
Sabine Hertling

Drone & Additional Camera & Mix
Eric Schefter

Production
Frauke Havemann/ON AIR

Audio Post-production Support
vis:a:vis Filmproduktion GmbH

Image Post Production
Planemo

Colour Grading
Jorge Piquer Rodríguez

Post Production Technician
Abdulmonim Twebti

General Manager
Marcin Malaszczak

Very Special Thanks
Neal Wach
Ferienhäuser am Kastavensee
Sabine Hertling
Richard Seemann

Special Thanks
Birgit Aust
Sergio Basso
Ulrike von Bredow
Simon Brückner
Tina Haber
Christine Hertling
Doug Moore
Marcel Neumann
Markus Plesser
Katrin Schoof
Caroline Schwarz
Daniel Steinmetz
Todd Yeates

This film uses sounds from freesound.org

Infinity Mood
Composed by Boris Hauf
Published by autopilot music publishing

Open Goldberg Variations
J.S. Bach
Performed by Kimiko Ishizaka
Aria
Variatio 7. a 1 ovvero 2 Clav
Variatio 10. a 1 Clav. Fughetta
Variatio 15. a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quinta
Variatio 17. a 2 Clav
Variatio 18. a 1 Clav. Canone alla Sexta
Variatio 19. a 1 Clav
Variatio 21. Canone alla Settima

Filmed on location in the Uckermark, Brandenburg, Germany

©2022 Frauke Havemann

Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR. Support Program Dance.

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