18/03/2014 - Feature debut for Swiss Dominik Locher in competition at the 13th Rome Independent Film Festival

In order to write a book, you’ve got to feel something. For this, Dominique Piepermann, the young main character in Tempo Girl [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a debut feature length film for Swiss Dominik Locher, throws herself in every single possible experience. She goes fast, pursues success, experiments with love, loss and humiliation. A heroine hungry for life, whose bruised and dark profile is the emblem of a generation for whom “everything is possible, but nothing is necessary.”  

In competition at the 13^th Rome Independent Film Festival (16-23 March), Tempo Girl tells the story of a young aspiring writer (played by German Florentine Krafft) who leads an unregulated life in Berlin’s hipster community. When her editor refuses to publish her manuscript because it is unauthentic, and suggests she should grow up, Dominique decides to leave with Deniz, a seller of Turkish kebabs (German-Chilean José Barros), towards a long forgotten valley in the Swiss Alps. There, they will rent a petrol station and cultivate their own hippie dreams in the middle of the mountains, living among the cows and making love in the fields.

But the romantic comedy quickly turns to drama. In order to make more money, Dominique dances in a night club where her nasty protector (Daniel Mangisch) walks around with a weapon and has a wondering eye. When she gets pregnant, she decides to abort (in a gruesome scene) and in order to justify it to Deniz, she lies, provoking a series of unfortunate events. Back in Berlin, her book "Tempo Girl - The Story of a Generation" is ready to be published.

Made in twenty days in the Valais canton, with one day in Berlin, Tempo Girl was born from one of the director’s personal reflections: “at the beginning of my career, I was looking for success and I was on the hunt for experiences.” Locher took her first steps as a director and an actress in the field of alternative art and theatre. “Then I understood that the important things in life are different, which is why I started thinking about this film four years ago.”

The character of Dominique remains ambiguous: we don’t know if her feelings are authentic. She spends the entire film thinking about her book until the end, when in a Pulp Fiction homage, all is put into question. It would have been nice to get to know her and her motivations more.

Produced by Hugofilm Productions, who is also in charge of international sales, Tempo Girl was presented last October at the German Internationale Hofer Filmtage, in January in Switzerland at the Solothurn Film Festival and on March 7 in the United States at the Cinequest Film Festival. The film will next be seen at the St Tropez International Film Festival and at the Madrid International Film Festival. Swiss distribution is Spot On Distribution.

(Translated from Italian)