GFQ 2-2007 - german films

Die Anruferin
THE CALLING GAME
“Please, can you tell me another story? No, not a bedtime
story. A really exciting one …,” the voice of a lonely child
begs somebody on the telephone. Craving for warmth and
compassion, it is Irm, a woman in her early 30s. She calls
strangers and, imitating a child’s voice, pretends she is a
young cancer patient. In heart-rending conversations, she
establishes relationships that she abruptly ends when they
threaten to become too close. This is Irm’s way of reaching
out from her life, a life in which she jobs in a laundrette
and looks after her bed-ridden mother. Though no longer
able to talk, her mother still makes it clear that her favor -
ite was always Irm’s sister Margit. But now Irm has the
upper hand and lets her know it.
When she meets the self-assured but emotionally vulner -
able Sina, she comes up against a woman who is in great
need of a friend and thinks she’s found her in Irm. Caught
between the pull of her mother’s imminent death and her
manipulative play-acting, Irm is increasingly drawn to the
strong, life-loving woman who offers her friendship. She
knows that Sina must learn the truth some day and is
afraid of losing her. But Sina is more tenacious than she
thinks – and believes in Irm more than she does herself …
The Calling Game is director Felix Randau’s second
feature after his 2003 film Northern Star, which also won
him the Studio Hamburg Newcomer Award for Best Script.
World Sales
Bavaria Film International · Dept. of Bavaria Media GmbH · Thorsten Schaumann
Bavariafilmplatz 8 · 82031 Geiselgasteig/Germany
phone +49-89-64 99 26 86 · fax +49-89-64 99 37 20
email: international@bavaria-film.de · www.bavaria-film-international.com
Genre Drama Category Feature Film Cinema Year of
Production 2007 Director Felix Randau Screenplay Vera
Kissel Director of Photography Jutta Pohlmann Editor
Gergana Voigt Music by Thies Mynther Production Design
Peter Menne Producers Ralph Schwingel, Stefan Schubert, Hejo
Emons Associate Producer Bjoern Vosgerau Commis -
sioning Editors Lucas Schmidt, Barbara Haebe Production
Company Wueste Film West/Cologne, in co-production with
ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel/Mainz, in cooperation with ARTE/
Strasbourg Principal Cast Valerie Koch, Esther Schweins,
Franziska Ponitz Casting Deborah Congia Length 80 min, 2,189
m Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85 Original Version German
Subtitled Version English Sound Technology Dolby SR
With backing from Filmstiftung NRW, Nordmedia
Felix Randau was born in 1974 in Emden. After studies in
German Literature and Ethnology in Bonn, he enrolled in the
Directing program at the German Academy of Film & Television
(dffb) in Berlin. His films include: Ritual and Something
Happened to Me Yesterday (shorts, 1996), Matadore and
Boomtown Berlin (shorts, 1997), Something Stupid
(short, 1998), Siemensstadt (short, 2000), Northern Star
(2003), and The Calling Game (Die Anruferin, 2007).
german films quarterly new german films
2 · 2007 43
Valerie Koch (photo © Wueste Film West/Thekla Ehling)