Bliss
German director Henrika Kull takes audiences inside a working Berlin brothel, in her sophomore feature Bliss. The drama centres on the romantic relationship that forms between Sascha (Katharina Behrens) and new girl Maria (Adam Hoya), but their insecurities and struggles to open up threatens their hopes of finding something more emotionally permanent.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Kull discussed taking her audience into unfamiliar spaces, challenging preconceptions and changing perception.
Paul Risker: Filmmakers are often asked what they want the audience to take away from a film. Speaking with directors, I get the sense they’re often not trying to tell the audience anything, but instead give them an experience. Is this how you approach filmmaking?
Henrika Kull: Yes, and the places I go in my research, for example with my first film Jibril, was to prison, but also the Arab community of Berlin, and here it was an actual brothel.
German director Henrika Kull takes audiences inside a working Berlin brothel, in her sophomore feature Bliss. The drama centres on the romantic relationship that forms between Sascha (Katharina Behrens) and new girl Maria (Adam Hoya), but their insecurities and struggles to open up threatens their hopes of finding something more emotionally permanent.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Kull discussed taking her audience into unfamiliar spaces, challenging preconceptions and changing perception.
Paul Risker: Filmmakers are often asked what they want the audience to take away from a film. Speaking with directors, I get the sense they’re often not trying to tell the audience anything, but instead give them an experience. Is this how you approach filmmaking?
Henrika Kull: Yes, and the places I go in my research, for example with my first film Jibril, was to prison, but also the Arab community of Berlin, and here it was an actual brothel.
- 12/24/2021
- by Paul Risker
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Sometimes finding love is as easy as catching a stranger’s eye across a crowded room. Keeping it, however, requires an ability to orientate oneself first and foremost in regard to that individual, without overdue reference to the rest of the world. Once one starts to define one’s passions in relation to what others say is possible or permissible, that essential leap of faith on which love depends becomes much, much harder.
Maria (Adam Hoya) catches the eye of Sascha (Katharina Behrens) as soon as she enters the common room of the brothel where Sascha works. She’s the new girl, just 25, up from Italy and in need of a job that will enable her to keep up with the cost of living in Berlin. She’s done this kind of work before. It’s nothing unusual, just a question of creating simple fantasies and performing routine tasks for assorted male guests.
Maria (Adam Hoya) catches the eye of Sascha (Katharina Behrens) as soon as she enters the common room of the brothel where Sascha works. She’s the new girl, just 25, up from Italy and in need of a job that will enable her to keep up with the cost of living in Berlin. She’s done this kind of work before. It’s nothing unusual, just a question of creating simple fantasies and performing routine tasks for assorted male guests.
- 12/23/2021
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Fortysomething sex worker Sascha falls for twentysomething Maria, but a visit to her home town forces a reckoning
Henrika Kull’s intimate movie is set in a real-life legal brothel in Berlin. Katharina Behrens plays fortysomething Sascha: a good-natured, easygoing veteran who brusquely calls herself a Nutte, a “tart”, rather than the official term Sexarbeiterin, or sex worker, and she periodically makes tense visits to her home town of Brandenburg to see her 11-year-old son from a previous relationship. She is more or less happy with her life – until suddenly she falls passionately in love with a new girl at the brothel, a twentysomething Italian called Maria, played by the performance artist and former escort Adam Hoya, who as Eva Collé was the subject of the 2019 documentary Searching Eva.
Bliss may or may not illuminate the “sex work is work” debate: certainly, Sascha and Maria’s day-to-day experience of the...
Henrika Kull’s intimate movie is set in a real-life legal brothel in Berlin. Katharina Behrens plays fortysomething Sascha: a good-natured, easygoing veteran who brusquely calls herself a Nutte, a “tart”, rather than the official term Sexarbeiterin, or sex worker, and she periodically makes tense visits to her home town of Brandenburg to see her 11-year-old son from a previous relationship. She is more or less happy with her life – until suddenly she falls passionately in love with a new girl at the brothel, a twentysomething Italian called Maria, played by the performance artist and former escort Adam Hoya, who as Eva Collé was the subject of the 2019 documentary Searching Eva.
Bliss may or may not illuminate the “sex work is work” debate: certainly, Sascha and Maria’s day-to-day experience of the...
- 12/20/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
While there are many streaming services fighting for your attention, Arrow has the most eclectic collection of horror, sci-fi, exploitation, and cult films, and they're bolstering their collection with new titles every month. Michael Venus' Sleep is a brand new release on Arrow and we have the exclusive trailer reveal that you can watch right now!
"Tormented by recurring nightmares of a place she has never been, Marlene cannot help but investigate when she discovers the place is real. Once there, she suffers a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward. Determined to discover what happened to her, Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) her daughter, follows and finds herself in Stainbach, an idyllic village with a dark history/secret. What is it that so tormented her mother, and the people of Stainbach? What is the source of the nightmares she suffered? Who is the mysterious Trude that lives in the forest?...
"Tormented by recurring nightmares of a place she has never been, Marlene cannot help but investigate when she discovers the place is real. Once there, she suffers a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward. Determined to discover what happened to her, Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) her daughter, follows and finds herself in Stainbach, an idyllic village with a dark history/secret. What is it that so tormented her mother, and the people of Stainbach? What is the source of the nightmares she suffered? Who is the mysterious Trude that lives in the forest?...
- 11/2/2021
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Second feature from Germany’s Henrika Kull debuted in Berlinale’s Panorama this year.
Paris-based sales company Reel Suspects has unveiled a raft of deals on German director Henrika Kull’s second feature Bliss, about two sex workers who fall in love after meeting in a Berlin brothel.
The Berlinale 2021 Panorama selection co-stars Adam Hoya and Katharina Behrens as a young Italian woman and a German single mother in her 40s who embark on an empowering and identity-affirming relationship.
It has sold to France (Outplay Films), UK and Ireland (Bohemia Media), Eastern Europe (HBO), Japan (The Klockworx), South Korea (Lumix Media...
Paris-based sales company Reel Suspects has unveiled a raft of deals on German director Henrika Kull’s second feature Bliss, about two sex workers who fall in love after meeting in a Berlin brothel.
The Berlinale 2021 Panorama selection co-stars Adam Hoya and Katharina Behrens as a young Italian woman and a German single mother in her 40s who embark on an empowering and identity-affirming relationship.
It has sold to France (Outplay Films), UK and Ireland (Bohemia Media), Eastern Europe (HBO), Japan (The Klockworx), South Korea (Lumix Media...
- 7/21/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Day 3 of this year’s Berlinale announcements contain the line-ups for Encounters, Panorama and Perspektive Deutsches Kino. Check back in tomorrow for the Competition program.
Encounters was first introduced at last year’s festival to support new voices in cinema. A three-member jury will award Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award during the industry event in March, with the prizes handed out physically at the summer event.
The selection consists of 12 titles from 16 countries, including seven debuts. Scroll down for the full list.
Over in Panorama, there are 19 titles including 14 world premieres. Several titles arrive from Sundance such as Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK feature Censor and Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors.
Perspektive Deutsches Kino will again present new views on German cinema, with six titles, all of which are world premieres. The full lists are below.
This week so far has seen the Generation, Retrospective, Forum, Forum Expanded and Shorts programs announced.
Encounters was first introduced at last year’s festival to support new voices in cinema. A three-member jury will award Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award during the industry event in March, with the prizes handed out physically at the summer event.
The selection consists of 12 titles from 16 countries, including seven debuts. Scroll down for the full list.
Over in Panorama, there are 19 titles including 14 world premieres. Several titles arrive from Sundance such as Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK feature Censor and Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors.
Perspektive Deutsches Kino will again present new views on German cinema, with six titles, all of which are world premieres. The full lists are below.
This week so far has seen the Generation, Retrospective, Forum, Forum Expanded and Shorts programs announced.
- 2/10/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Stars: Sandra Hüller, Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Max Hubacher, August Schmölzer, Marion Kracht, Agata Buzek, Martina Schöne-Radunski, Katharina Behrens, Andreas Anke | Written by Michael Venus, Thomas Friedrich | Directed by Michael Venus
Tormented by vivid nightmares she believes are real, Marlene (Sandra Hüller) starts piecing together her oneiric visions. Assembling nightmarish sketches, maddening notes, and recollections gathered throughout the year, she makes her way to a remote hotel in the peaceful village of Stainbach. There, the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place, and she suffers a nervous breakdown. Worried about her mother’s condition, her 19-year-old daughter Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to the psychiatric ward to find her. Coming from the city, the small town’s atmosphere is immediately uncanny. At the hotel – around which everything seems to gravitate – the staff is friendly and helpful. But soon, a well-kept secret and an old curse are uncovered, which, if awakened,...
Tormented by vivid nightmares she believes are real, Marlene (Sandra Hüller) starts piecing together her oneiric visions. Assembling nightmarish sketches, maddening notes, and recollections gathered throughout the year, she makes her way to a remote hotel in the peaceful village of Stainbach. There, the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place, and she suffers a nervous breakdown. Worried about her mother’s condition, her 19-year-old daughter Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to the psychiatric ward to find her. Coming from the city, the small town’s atmosphere is immediately uncanny. At the hotel – around which everything seems to gravitate – the staff is friendly and helpful. But soon, a well-kept secret and an old curse are uncovered, which, if awakened,...
- 8/14/2020
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
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