tom gramenz swen gippa a film by stéphane riethauser - prora

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENTI was working on a script about two boys confronting their identities when one day I read anewspaper article about Prora. I immediately thought it would be the perfect setting to stagemy story. Its endless dimensions allowed unusual cinematic possibilities and its massivelyhistoric and oppressive architecture offered many symbolic perspectives. I also liked thename “Prora”, which in Latin and Greek means the prow of a ship. It matched my desire totell the story of the two friends Jan and Matthieu, one German and the other French.Despite opposite backgrounds and personalities, Jan and Matthieu gradually feel attractedto each other until they unexpectedly have sex for the first time. But they have troublecoming to terms with it: their physical and emotional outburst blows up their culturalpatterns, blurs their relationship and challenges their masculinity. Nonetheless, theirfriendship prevails. The experience deepens their understanding of their own identities.Whether gay or straight, Jan and Matthieu will never forget this adventure, which opens newhorizons and allows them to become men.I see Prora’s labyrinthine structure as a third lead character in the story. A vestige of thepast, a witness of failed fascist and communist utopias, the complex reveals the tensionbetween the boys and provides a stark contrast with the sensuous beauty of the adjacentBaltic Sea. A statement on the perils of normative heterosexism, Prora underscores thepoisonous inflexibility of Jan and Matthieu’s inherited social landscape.Given the building’s extraordinary suggestive power, I also built in solitary time for both Janand Matthieu in and around the structure. Over the course of the film, the monstrosityrenders the boys at once more fragile, more resilient and more human. Only on the beach,wordless and elemental, are they able to reconcile.A journey of self-exploration, a tale of male adolescence, a parabolic confrontation betweennature and culture, Prora is a simple, tender story about love and friendship.Stéphane Riethauserwww.prora-themovie.com