Orphea in Love

A young call center agent falls in love with a petty criminal street dancer. She is Orpheus. He is Eurydice. Her means of expression is singing, he expresses himself through dance. For her great love, she descends into the underworld, faces her old demons, and learns to trust again. An opera pasticcio between Puccini, Handel, and Christian Steiffen. Nele is a dreamer. She repeatedly escapes her dreary everyday life into the soulful world of opera and music. Almost invisible, the young woman, who actually comes from a small village in Estonia, gets by in a German city as a multi-jobber. But she carries a secret from her past that repeatedly gives her bloody nightmares. When she meets street dancer and petty criminal Kolya, it is a fateful encounter for both of them, a meeting of kindred spirits. They grow closer through a symbiosis of song and dance. But Nele's dark past stands in the way of their budding love. ORPHEA IN LOVE was released in 2023 and presented at several renowned festivals, including the Munich Film Festival and the Hof Film Festival. The film was praised by audiences and critics alike for its unusual blend of opera and feature film and received the award for best music at the International Sound & Film Music Festival in Croatia. Particular praise was given to the performances of Mirjam Mesak and Guido Badalamenti, as well as the opulent visual language that combines classical opera arias with contemporary Berlin reality. Produced by Rosa von Praunheim's school and MissingFILMs, ORPHEA IN LOVE stands for emotional, sensual cinema that shows that big emotions also have their place in modern urban everyday life – tragic, beautiful, and full of music.