Julia von Heinz developing her next feature, September October
by Olivia Popp
- FilmFernsehFonds Bayern has granted the project a funding award of €35,000 for story development
German writer-director Julia von Heinz is developing a new film revealed as having the title September October. The project will have a script penned by her and her husband John Quester, who together run Munich-based outfit Kings & Queens Filmproduktion (previously known as Heinz & Quester). Quester is a writer and producer who has produced or co-written several films by von Heinz.
According to a summary released by FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF Bayern), the story centres on 61-year-old Helen, who is confronted with the shocking realisation that her 63-year-old husband Jörg has been having an affair with his younger colleague. She is thus faced by the ruins of what she thought was her life.
First, Helen tries to preserve the relationship, thinking that trying to achieve independence and freedom will ultimately hurt her more than help her. However, after she is effectively rendered invisible, she eventually comes to learn that she must break away from old ways of thinking and empower herself.
FFF Bayern, Bavaria's film-funding body, has awarded the project €35,000 worth of financial support for story development. It was one of five projects presented with this type of financial aid for FFF Bayern’s first funding cycle of 2025.
Von Heinz world-premiered her debut feature, the coming-of-age drama Nothing Else Matters, at the 2007 Berlinale. She later worked together with Tom Tykwer and others to create the documentary Pink Children about their shared mentor Rosa von Praunheim, a member of the mid-century New German Cinema movement and one of the most well-known queer and AIDS awareness activists of the German-speaking world.
Her work last came to cinema screens with the English-language flick Treasure [+see also:
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film profile], starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, which had its world premiere in Berlin's Berlinale Special section and was penned by the German filmmaker and Quester. The film was the final instalment in von Heinz's triptych known as the "Aftermath Trilogy", which also consisted of Hanna’s Journey [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and And Tomorrow the Entire World [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Julia von Heinz
film profile] (selected in Venice's Competition), dealing with intergenerational trauma, and the lingering effects of the Holocaust on various characters and communities.
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