Ich fühl mich Disco
Director: Axel Ranisch
Writer: Axel Ranisch, Sönke Andresen
Cast: Frithjof Gawenda, Heiko Pinkowski, Christina Große, Robert Alexander Baer, Christian Steiffen
Part of: Viennale

Plot:
Flori (Frithjof Gawenda) is introverted, fat and spends most of his time with his mother Monika (Christina Große). Among other things it’s their shared love for singer Christian Steiffen (Christian Steiffen) that unifies them, while Flori’s father Hanno (Heiko Pinkowski) would like to see Flori be more “manly” and sporty. When Monika has a stroke, Hanno and Flori have to become closer and also deal with Flori’s falling in love with Radu (Robert Alexander Baer), a boy his father works with.

I saw Axel Ranisch’s Dicke Mädchen earlier this year and loved it (and Axel Ranisch himself, too), so Ich fühl mich Disco was a must-see for me. And not only was Ranisch adorable as ever in the audience talk, Ich fühl mich Disco absolutely enchanted me – even more so than Dicke Mädchen.

Ich fühl mich Disco is funny and wonderful and sad and just great. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it takes its characters, their personalities, their worries and their lives absolutely seriously. And that is just perfect. Flori was such a wonderful and unusual protagonist – I wish we got more of his kind.

And the whole shtick with Christian Steiffen had me cracking up. In fact, the entire cast had me cracking up – from Frithjof Gawenda to Christina Große.

But it was Heiko Pinkowski who stole every scene he was in. His Hanno loves Flori, but he doesn’t really know what to do with him. And in every other film about a gay teenager this would probably have spelled disaster or fairy tale resolution. But Pinkowski has such a grasp on Hanno that it all seems completely authentic. Not uncomplicated, but not the drama it could be. Not perfectly fine, but not without love. It was perfect.

And I still just want to grab Ranisch and take him home with me. What an extremely likeable personality! And as he’s shown again, with a whole damn lot of talent as a storyteller. I’ll have to stop here and start drawing little hearts around his name in my notebook.

Summarizing: <3 <3 <3