Füür brännt

People on a summer day: young boys play together between the tower blocks of a housing estate, they speak about their professional dreams and try to get the car drivers on the street to beep their horns at them. Teenagers meet by the bank of a river, fool about, swim, party and test each other’s courage by the campfire. At a garden party, young adults sit around together, barbecuing, laughing, playing and discussing. As darkness gradually falls, more and more emotions come into play, until everyone goes their separate way at the end of the night. Filmed in lengthy static shots, Michael Karrer’s debut film BURNING FIRE is interested in groups and their dynamics. In largely calm scenes from everyday life, gestures of togetherness and the need to have company are revealed, as are well-known behavioral patterns, shifts in mood, frictions and power struggles, all of them independently of age or social milieu. These fictional scenes based on observation and improvisation are imbued with a documentary glow – before the fire eventually dies down. (Birgit Kohler)