16/12/2024 - After her acclaimed graduation film, Aren’t You Happy?, the second instalment in a planned trilogy by the German director is now in post-production

After her first film, Aren't You Happy? [+see also:
trailer
film profile], expectations for Susanne Heinrich’s next movie are very high. In 2019, she won the Best Feature Film Award at the Max Ophüls Prize for her work (see the news). The helmer, then a fresh graduate from the DFFB, presented this bold social satire revolving around a main female protagonist who was equally as bold. The film is a clever mixture of stylish aesthetics, an episodic pace and structure, and trenchant and humorous dialogue. Aren't You Happy? is a cinematic firecracker on many levels and an important feminist manifesto. It also represents the first part in a planned trilogy.

The Miserable Mother is the title of its second part, which is now in post-production. Filming lasted 24 days and took place during summer this year, mainly in a studio setting in Leipzig. The short synopsis goes as follows: “For ‘The Miserable Mother’, stuck at home with her boyfriend, ‘Peter Pan’, and their newborn, motherhood becomes a prison. Within her own four walls, the boundaries blur between inside and outside, society and subject, body and discourse. A musical film.” Heinrich is not only serving as the director, but also as the screenwriter. She is backed up by cinematographer Agnesh Pakozdi (Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elene Naveriani
film profile], Wet Sand [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elene Naveriani
film profile]).

As for the cast, the largely female ensemble is composed of newcomers and more experienced talents, such as Rosa Landers, Johanna Spantzel, Julia Klotz, Sandrine Zenner, Marie Rathscheck, Noemi Clerc, Inka Löwendorf, Amber Schoop, Theo Colarusso, Carolin Waltsgott and Isabel Waltsgott.

The Miserable Mother is a production by Reynard Films GmbH in co-production with Essential Filmproduktion GmbH, France’s Société Parisienne de Production and Cologne based TV-channel WDR. It was funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM), the German Federal Film Board (FFA), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB), Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen and Creative Europe – MEDIA. Its worldwide sales are handled by French company Coproduction Office. The exact release date is not yet known, but the plan is for it to be out in spring 2025.

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