Short film “Boy Lost Girl”

Posted on 08/09/2011

Well well, I finally took the time to do a new encode of my short film “Rundweltmädchen Gesucht!”.

This post here features the English subtitled version “Boy Lost Girl”, therefore you will have a chance to hopefully appreciate the movie even if you don’t understand any German at all. And don’t worry, contrary to most other German films you may or may not see, you don’t have to sit through overlong dialogue in a language that’s too harsh for international ears. If you don’t need the subtitles (also wenn du Deutsch verstehst), then click here to see original version.

So yes, ‘Rundweltmädchen Gesucht!’ was the first short film that I shot with my friend René Hoffmann that was actually finished (there was a film called “Das Staaht” that features some really wooden acting by yours truly, so consider yourself lucky that you got that one here instead). It’s based on some true story too. But more on that later. We first need a synopnis:

Christian (Manuel Klein) takes a ride on the Munich subway and reads a book by Terry Pratchett. And guess what? There is this pretty girl (Lesley Jennifer Higl) that takes a seat opposite him and she too reads a book by that fantastic Brit author. So they talk, and they flirt and then there’s Christian’s stop and he just gets up and leaves. He never asked for her name or anything specific which turns out to be a bad idea shortly after she smiles at him through closed subway doors. Very enchanting, hm? So she might be the one and Christian might just be an idiot or in love or crazy therefore he tries everything to find her again. And finding someone again is not too easy in a city with more than one million people living in it. But maybe his best friend Tara (Christina Meling) will help him.

Regarding the true story: So I met this girl in the Munich subway and fucked it up. That was in 2003 and in I was a bit petrified about that. I just figured that the best form of therapy would be to shoot a movie about about such a poor guy (and yes Christian is actually my second name, soooo autobiographycal hah) so I asked my friend René for help. We wrote the script together and then I ran around to find some nice people who went to the several Munich acting schools, something that worked out quite nicely. We shot the film in summer 2004 with me as Director/Producer and René as Cameraman/Editor and admittantly chopped a lot of whatever we shot out when we finished the film in 2006. Some people really liked it actually, therefore it ran on a few festival, won a price and ran regularly on a student television station (I still haven’t seen it myself on telly as nobody bothers to tell be that it’s on, but a couple of people always tell me that they saw it which I guess is nice too). But I guess it worked as a form of therapy after all.

I still like the movie but of course it’s a bit flawed. DV tends to look even more dated and awful now and some bits and peaces could have worked out nicer (I personally hate how I directed the flirt at the beginning for example) but overall I say that it is a nice little movie with some heart. So what do you guys think?

Cast:
Manuel Klein, Lesley Jennifer Higl, Christina Meling, Christian Genzel, Iris Höppel, Severin Komander, Charlotte Alten, Nina Heidinger, Martina Schölzhorn, Christine Bulla, Stefan Scheller, Melanie Sobolla, Franz Reger and Robert Nawrot.

Crew:
Alexander Sobolla, René Hofmann, Melanie Sobolla, Franz Reger, Robert Pintaric, Roland Söns, Benny Oschmann and Marc Bradley.

Runtime: 23 mins. Shot on a Canon XM1 DV Kamera in 16:9.

P.S. And no I never saw her again. What did you think? There’s this premier and after the movie some girl gets up and shouts: “You’re so fine” and runs to me,  kisses me and then I realise it’s her and all is well and we live happily ever after. Didn’t happen.