Undine (Paula Beer) works in Berlin as a historian and guide to the city's development. She has a small apartment at Alexanderplatz, a Master's degree in history, and a freelance contract. When her lover Johannes leaves her, her world collapses. But underneath the appearance of her modern city life lurks an old myth: if the man Undine loves betrays her, she has to kill him and return to the water she once came from.
Undine fights against the curse but thinks she has no choice . Then she meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski), an industrial diver, and falls for him. This is a new, happy and innocent love filled with curiosity and trust. But when Christoph starts to feel that Undine is running away from something, she has to face her curse once and for all. She doesn't want to lose this love.
Christian Petzold was born in 1960 in Hilden. Since 1981, he has lived in Berlin, where he studied German literature and theatre and worked as a film critic as well as in various functions for television. He studied at the German Film and Television Academy of Berlin from 1988 to 1994, during which he also worked as an assistant director for Harun Farocki and Hartmut Bitomsky.
In 1995, Christian Petzold directed his thesis film at the film academy: PILOTS. CUBA LIBRE, which was awarded the 1996 Promotional Prize at the Max Ophüls Festival, and THE SEX THIEF (1998), followed. In 2001, with THE STATE I AM IN, he won the German Film Award (for Outstanding Feature Film) as well as, that same year, the International Federation of Film Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent movies SOMETHING TO REMIND ME (2002), WOLFSBURG (2003) and GHOSTS (2005) were also awarded numerous prizes.
In 2018, TRANSIT, following GHOSTS (2005), YELLA (2007) and BARBARA (2012), was likewise selected to compete at the Berlinale.
Christian Petzold released his film PHOENIX, the sixth collaboration with Nina Hoss, in September 2014. With PHOENIX, which is set directly after the end of World War II, the film director developed a highly individualistic approach to historical material. The film went on to win the Critics Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
The screenplay for TRANSIT, freely adapted from Anna Seghers' novel of the same name, is the first screenplay Petzold has written without his former co-author Farocki.
In 2018, Christian Petzold was invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which annually awards the Oscars.
UNDINE was nominated for the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2020. Paula Beer received the Silver Bear Best Actress.
Filmography
2020 UNDINE
2018 TRANSIT
2016 WÖLFE (POLIZEIRUF 110) [WOLVES (POLICE CALL 110)]
2015 KREISE (POLIZEIRUF 110) [CIRCLES (POLICE CALL 110)]
2014 PHOENIX
2012 BARBARA
2011 THREE LIVES – BEATS BEING DEAD
2008 JERICHOW
2007 YELLA
2005 GHOSTS
2003 WOLFSBURG
2002 SOMETHING TO REMIND ME (TV)
2001 THE STATE I AM IN
1996 CUBA LIBRE (TV)
1995 PILOTS (TV)
SCHEDULE AND VENUE
Film screening
15 December 2021, 8.15pm
Al Bustan Hotel, Muscat
Free entry
