Film Screening
Sven O. Hill: Coup
Goethe-Kino (Kinovorführung)
Twenty two-year old Rüdi lives a double life. A suit-wearing banker during the day, he hangs out with his rough looking motorcycle-gang friends in his free time. He has no problems with this, though his ‘rocker’ friends are skeptical of the suit, while his banker colleagues don’t approve of the alcohol on his breath. But Rüdi is a smart employee and a night without sleep does not prevent him from dealing with interests and dividends. This comes in handy when his friend Toby asks him the existential question whether Rüdi likes his job and wants to keep on working for the rest of his life. ‘Not really, if he’s honest’, Rüdi thinks. And more thinking leads him to a plan using a loophole in the banking system which in turn leads to millions for him and his buddies – not a robbery but a coup involving little piles of coupons, numbered bank accounts in Luxembourg, and his ‘rocker friends’ getting into suits.
Coming from documentary film, director Sven O. Hill was inspired by a little-known true story of a young man in Hamburg who defrauded the bank he worked for of 2,5 million DM. Hill’s interviews with this banker, whom we see at the beginning and end of the film, form the running commentary to the fictive re-telling of his story. The deadpan narration and Northern accent of the now over 50-year-old fraudster go hand-in-hand with the dry visual humour of the film. Aki Kaurismäki comes to mind. A limited budget may also have inspired the stripped-down re-creation of the 1980s ambiente as well as the use of animated sequences to summarise parts of the story. But whatever Hill did to save money only benefited this unpretentious and engaging film featuring an endearing ensemble of characters.
Germany 2019, 121 mins. With English subtitles.
Directed and written by Sven O. Hill. With Daniel Michel, Tomasz Robak, Paula Kalenberg, Rocko Schamoni, Leonard Kunz.
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Hill made his directorial debut in 2009 with the documentary The Sound After the Storm (together with Ryan Fenson-Hood and Patrik Soergel), a Swiss-German co-production. Hill was also responsible for the camera. At the Zurich Film Festival, 2009 the film won Best International Documentary.
Despite this success, Hill focused on his work as a cinematographer again in the following years. For Haaßengier and Brügger, he shot the documentaries Exit Eden (2010), Vom Ordnen der Dinge (2014) and Master of Disaster (2019), some of which won awards. In parallel, he realized the six-minute short feature film Cocci in 2016 and the short documentary Schnipsel in 2017, which premiered at the Landshut Short Film Festival 2019.
Coup was Sven O. Hill’s first own feature-length film, which he scripted, directed, co-produced, shot and edited (together with Hendrik Maximilian Schmitt). The premiere of Coup took place at the Hofer Filmtage 2019, where the film won the Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino. At the Hessian Film and Cinema Award 2020, Coup was awarded Best Feature Film.
Details
Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
SW7 2PH London
Price: £5, Concession: £3 / Free for Language students & Goethe-Institut Library Members. Reservation required.
+44 20 75964000
info-london@goethe.de
Part of series Goethe-Kino 2024