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                                                                     +++ International Short Film Festival Detmold Official Selection 2009 +++

77-year old Max has become adapted to living according to a well-laid-out routine, ever so aware of his isolation from the outside world. Today Max takes a leap. He visits a place long locked away in memory: the football stadium.

Max has had a good life. A woman he loved, a career, happiness. Now he is 77 years old and alone. Every day has become a routine, during which everything is kept in good order. Max gets up, shaves, dresses, and prepares tea. Every day.

Today is different. Max wonders why the pills he usually takes suddenly seem irrelevant and why the clock in the living room sounds louder. He has a recurring dream about the football stadium, a place long forgotten and misplaced in memory. Today he is able to break out of his routine: This time Max enters the stadium for real, determined to get in touch with that estranged boy and to find happiness again. Maybe for one last time.

To me 'Abseitsleben' has always been constructed as a project of definite shortfilm-dimensions, yet it is of high importance to me. I was struck by how the elderly often suffer from loneliness, isolation, and resulting depression. I discovered this in my own family where I certainly would not have expected it and so my interest in the matter took on a personal dimension. Carried by the performance of Heinz W. Krückeberg, 'Abseitsleben' does not want to draw out the tragedy of being old but rather suggest that a lifetime of happiness and fulfilment can stand up to the darker areas of life's closing chapter.

Over the course of three shooting days we had the pleasure of watching Heinz W. Krückeberg become 'Max'. He effortlessly slipped from his charming, joyful self into the much isolated character ‘Max’ and back again. In production and postproduction I could watch him for hours, and all the while let myself get caught in the story Heinz W. Krückeberg's whole being and especially his eyes tell without the need for words.

Germany 2009 | HDV | 09:20 min | no dialogue | 16:9 | colour | stereo