Markus Schramm

In I AM HERE!, Wüst gave 16mm and its limitations on shooting a try, resulting in one of his most beautiful and intense works. Little happens outside childhood friends Monika and Martin talking while walking through a forest towards a barren field and a car. Their talk is simultaneously incessant and halting as they circle a history of hurt from their younger days.

Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s scandalous drama Reigen and Chantal Akerman’s famous film Tout en Nuit, the viewer witnesses a modern cycle of love. The film portrays fleeting moments of happiness and disappointment: a young woman talks about her non-binary existence. We observe another woman who, after long years of marriage, finally leaves her home to embark on her first romantic adventure in a hotel room with a “blind date”. This is followed by a drunken drive home for a couple, whose nighttime outing ends in a dark landscape. To be continued!

Leipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.