Mitte Ende August

Thomas and Hanna buy an isolated house in the countryside. It's summer. They are in love. A hammer is purchased at the DIY-store to knock a hole in the wall for a new door. Everything seems fine. Then Thomas' elder brother Friedrich and Hanna's godchild Augustine arrive at the house. In an instant, the chemistry of relationships is in disorder. Reason consorts with reason and playfulness with playfulness. When Hanna's father, a man of considerable self-promotion skills, drives up in a sports car with his Russian girlfriend to call on his daughter for her birthday, misery abounds. Sebastian Schipper loosely based his third feature film on motifs from Goethe's "Elective Affinities". No heavyweight literature, no dusty expressions, no historical ballast, instead an easy-going, buoyant narrative, that seems to travel its path across all ups and downs of love by itself, powered by the actors' verve.Extatic joy and deep despair – those are the emotional extremes in this film that nimbly balances mood and atmosphere. A contributing factor not to be underestimated is undoubtedly the irresistable soundtrack that the exceptionally gifted indie musician Vic Chesnutt composed for Sometime in August. (Berlinale)