Pingpong

A family‘s crises come to the surface in this drama, the first feature from filmmaker Matthias Luthardt. Stefan (Rockstroh) and Anna (Mitterhammer) are a petit bourgeois couple who live a bland existence in the suburbs with their nebbishy son Robert (Berg), who they all but ignore. One day Stefan and Anna’s teenage nephew Paul (Urzendowsky) arrives at their home without warning and announces he’s moving in, since Paul’s father recently committed suicide. Paul makes a token effort at bonding with Robert, but it doesn’t take Anna long to realise that her nephew is sexually attracted to her. When Stefan is called away on business, Paul attempts to seduce Anna, though she seems to regard his efforts as quaint rather than arousing. Eventually, Paul can no longer deal with the tensions of the household, leading to an emotional explosion.

Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

With this graduation film, Matthias Luthardt and his young team have produced a highly professional work, an intimate psychological study of several characters in a situation which slowly turns out to be less innocent than it seemed at the start.

Karlovy Vary Film Festival Programme

*Actor Sebastian Urzendowsky will attend the screening.