Perla

In the organizer's words:

Film talk with costume designer Monika Buttinger at all screenings

Vienna, 1981: Perla is a single mother living with her daughter in Vienna. "Please speak German," her daughter Julia says to her. Pregnant, Perla has fled Czechoslovakia. Her daughter is embarrassed to speak her mother tongue on the subway. She dreams of playing like Horowitz, but Perla can no longer afford piano lessons. A new love could bring financial security - if it weren't for Perla's ex-husband and Julia's father, who calls her after her imprisonment. Suddenly there are two men and two "homes": Vienna, a city Perla bounces off, and the nameless village in Czechoslovakia that won't let her go. When Julia's father Andrej is released from prison and claims to be seriously ill, Perla embarks on a dangerous journey back to communist Czechoslovakia. Torn between the past and the present, Perla has to make decisions that could also jeopardize her future with her daughter.
"Perla works with empty spaces in a narrative vacuum, with moments in which you follow blindly without knowing which direction the film will take. This is masterfully prepared: A past love affair, mysterious phone calls, unearthed trauma and a new life in Vienna. What happened back then? Which side are we supposed to be on? The movie plays with unreliability...Perla - as a movie and as a character - is masterfully ambivalent. Rarely do we see such female characters who are people in their own right and not just trapped in a web of socio-economic circumstances." (kino-zeit.de)

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