Christian Petzhold's Ghosts

by Valentina Di Michele

15/02/2005 - ’A mother in search of her lost child. I was reading the brothers Grimm’s tales when I thought of making a film about ghosts and identity, about the desperate quest for one’s roots.’ This is how Christian Petzhold sums up his film, Ghosts, which will be presented today at the Berlinale in the official competition.
This new film, by a director who has already received many distinctions for Wolfsburg and The State I'm, was quite a success in Germany although its impact was less obvious in other countries. It is a bitter fairytale, one about social regression, loneliness, and the need for love.
To follow his heroin, roaming desperately in sad and lonely Berlin, Petzhold needed no less than Tilmann Büttner, king of the steadycam (from Run Lola Run to The Russian Arch [trailer]).

’We worked a lot on the notion of memory of the body, and on personal imaginary spaces,’ the director explains. ‘My scripts are never rigid. I try to reduce them to a few jokes, and let the actors get into their roles.’
This film was made with the support of the Filmförderungsanstalt, the BKM Kulturelle Filmförderung des Bundes, and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. This coproduction involves the German company Schramm FIlm Koerner & Weber and Bayerischer Rundfunk/ ARTE, and the French from Les Films des Tournelles and from ARTE France Cinéma.

(Translated from Italian)