The long Summer of Theory

Berlin, summer 2016. Filmmaker Nola, noise-punk singer Katja and actress Martina’s days of hanging around their apartment are numbered after being threatened with eviction by property speculators. Eschewing traditional narrative, Irene von Alberti serves up a film within a film through the character of Nola as an unconventional way of asking questions of how these things happen. Part lecture, part dream-like surrealism, Von Alberti puts theoretical discussion surrounding topics like feminism, anarchism and how to keep your art and your community afloat in the forefront as the three friends learn that simply sharing ideas is the first step to changing the world. (Jenny Browne, EXBERLINER, 25.1.2018)

The spirit of rebellion will be in the air at the Munich Film Festival, which will be occupied by movies focusing on young people protesting against how their societies are run and seeking out a new utopia. One of the German films that reflects the theme of “creative resistance” is “The Long Summer of Theory,” says Christoph Groener, who programs the New German Cinema section. The film reflects the feeling among the young that “what is needed is to move from solipsistic thinking to practical doing.” Irene von Alberti’s pic centers on three women whose apartment is threatened by property speculators. They decide to change their lives, and are “trying to think of new creative forms of living together” that incorporate a sense of “social solidarity.” The movie “wants to create a new activism where the film itself might be just a starting point and wants to infuse audiences with the need to talk to each other and find ways to create a new society, a new utopia, in which we can thrive,” says Groener. (Leo Barraclough, Variety, 22.6.2017)