Two boys bike around Brandenburg in Light Gradient

by Boyd van Hoeij

11/02/2009 - German director Jan Krüger presented his second feature, Light Gradient, in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. The film, produced by Berlin-based publishing house Salzgeber, tells the story of two young men in love who go on a hiking and biking trip in Brandenburg.

The deceptively simple screenplay, written by Krüger, focuses on the games and banter of a couple in their early twenties (newcomers Sebastian Schlecht and Eric Golub), as they make their way around the forests and fields of the region by bike. Having met just two months prior, they are still very much in the process of discovering what they like – and don’t like – about each other.

After their bikes get stolen and they spend a night out in the open, they find a farmstead in the woods, where they strike up a friendship with the owner (Iris Minich) and her handsome but wayward son (Denis Alevi). The summer idyll at first seems unaltered on the surface, yet things grow increasingly more complex.

With its complicated story rooted in an everyday naturalism, Krüger’s Light Gradient continues along the lines of his debut feature On the Road, which won a Tiger Award in Rotterdam in 2004, and his Silver Lion-winning short The Whiz Kids.

The film will be released in regular German theatres in June by Salzgeber, who also handle international sales. The film received financial backing from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg .