Kosmonautensehnsucht [literally: Cosmonaut Longing]
Director: Catharina Göldner
Writer: Catharina Göldner
Cast: Katharina Behrens, Jan Jaroszek, Nadja Stübinger, Moritz Vierboom, Ina Tempel, Alexander Höchst, Ruth Bickelhaupt, Annekatrin Grimm
Part of: FrauenFilmTage
Seen on: 3.3.2018
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Plot:
Miriam (Katharina Behrens) works as a stage manager in the theater. When it closes over the summer, Miriam has nothing to do but wait that her big love, a cosmonaut, returns to earth. But she’s keeping her waiting and summer becomes really long. And when an astrologist tells her that the cosmonaut isn’t the person for, instead she has to find somebody who was born January 19, 1985 at 3.30am. So Miriam starts looking.
Kosmonautensehnsucht is only 60 minutes long and has absolutely no budget to speak of and yet it manages to be one of the most charming, strong films I’ve seen in a long time. A wonderful little film.
Going into Kosmonautensehnsucht, I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew practically nothing about it, just having seen a couple of stills and liking the visuals enough to get tickets. but the film really was a win on absolutely all counts.
It starts with giving us a behind the scenes look (quite literally) at the job of the stage manager, which I found very interesting just from the point of view as a theater visitor. Then the film shows Miriam waiting, before she goes off on her search, and she occupies her time with building little sets for an astronaut doll and sending it into space that way and those sets are amazingly creative.
Behrens does a great job playing Miriam. She’s as sweet and funny as the film, with a certain sly kind of charisma: at first glance, you might look past her, but you’re bound to turn back around to her and once you start watching her, you never want to stop.
At all points the film could have drifted off into too much whimsy, but it manages to stay on this side of things, with a sparkle of humor in its eyes at all times. It’s funny and sweet and entertaining and I hope that we will get to see many more movies from Göldner.
Summarizing: Fantastic.
