Liebmann

Teacher Antek Liebmann (Godehard Giese) leaves his life in Germany behind and rents a place in northern France for the summer. His landlord Antoine (Alain Denizart) tells him that a murderer is on the loose in the surrounding woods. Following a dark premonition, Antek is drawn into the undergrowth on one of his walks, where he makes a dangerous discovery. He befriends his attractive neighbor Geneviève (Adeline Moreau) and the cheerful Sébastien (Fabien Ara). Neither of them suspects that Antek has left a terrible secret behind in his home country. Lighthearted summer days give way to nighttime crashes or open up brief excursions into parallel worlds. Only when a new love becomes possible does Antek seem to sense a way out of the darkness. But before he can start a new life, he must conjure up the ghosts of his past and conquer them. Jules Herrmann's feature film debut THE STRANGE SUMMER was celebrated at international festivals. The film was shown at the 2016 Berlinale Panorama, among others, and won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Max Ophüls Film Festival. It was also featured at the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival. The unconventional narrative style, elliptical dramaturgy, and Godehard Giese's intense performance were praised by critics as haunting. THE STRANGE SUMMER is a psychologically dense film about the trauma of gay masculinity, the violence of the past, and the attempt to start a new life in secret.