Petra Lorenz

Warm summer afternoons, concentrated on a group of young women and men on a weekend in the small town of Wels, form the setting for Andreas Gruber's diploma film, which was shot at the Vienna Film Academy and exclusively with amateur actors. The film primarily tells stories of adolescence, the basic tenor of which is already revealed in the film's title, through poses staged with attention to detail. The soundtrack provides the driving narrative force, not only expressing feelings and hopes, but also elegantly capturing a mood defined by waiting, while simultaneously archiving it.

This is the story of Nils Jeschke and his friends Evelin, Ralf, Johnny, and Michael. It all begins on a Friday afternoon when a strange woman moves into the house across from Evelin's, which has been vacant for years. No one could have imagined the dark secret this woman carries within her, not even in their wildest dreams. Nor could anyone have imagined the mystical powers of the book that Evelin steals from this woman. It enables one to open the gates to the afterlife, to rule over the underworld—to bring back the dead. When the teenagers abuse these powers one night, they unleash a catastrophe from which there seems to be no escape...