Vergiss Amerika

Three young people live through the turmoil of love and their first professional failures in provincial eastern Germany in the 90s. Vanessa Jopp was one of the first to set her sights on the lack of perspective for young people following reunification in her coming-of-age story VERGISS AMERIKA (Germany 2000). Benno and David haven been best friends since their childhood. Then Anna suddenly appears. The two young men fall in love with the priest’s daughter, who wants to become an actress. Anna plumps for Benno, the “doer”, while David, the “dreamer”, watches them unhappily. Professional matters don’t go well either. David wants to be a photographer and ends up working at a supermarket fishmonger’s. Benno deals in American cars and gets involved with some dodgy black marketeers. It’s a film about all the difference nuances of friendship, about yearnings and disillusionments, or, as the director puts it, about how “you keep on going despite everything”. This first feature received numerous prizes. For set designer Silke Buhr, the film was the start of her engagement with East Germany. (Kristina Jaspers)