Where no gods are, spectres rule

'Where no gods are, spectres rule' is a comedy about the alternative quest for identity in resistance to a totalitarian system in which the citizens lead only decals of themselves, forced to live happy lives free of contradictions.

We are used to telling - and being told - comprehensible stories, but we ourselves live in largely incomprehensible structures, behavior patterns and entanglements. Why am I like this today, when yesterday I was someone completely different? Our western, everyday reality is a certain perception of reality and is supposed to be a template for objective realities. One that has been constructed for us, long before we ourselves continue to construct it half-consciously, unconsciously. It is always full to the brim with justification holes, coincidences and other arbitrary settlements, which it applies again and again to explain away. In such explanations, why reality holes are not deep holes, but actually only two-dimensional circles, we are professionals.

Resisters against these reality and identity controls look for exactly these holes and gaps in the system, go into biographical exile, cross borders, sabotage questions and settings or try to attack the center. We have to perceive, feel, think and talk to each other differently, anew.

What we see and hear in the film are more or less dramatic, everyday and comic conversations. The act of speaking is an act of resistance against oneself and the outside world, if we assume - and we must - that words function not only as a reflection of rigid reality, but also as a tool that allows us to reinterpret and reshape reality. Telling other/different stories, conversely, also means being able to perceive ever new alternative realities.

The working relationships we care most about are mostly "anti-professional", but only in the sense that they are not grounded in a business decision, but in a private one. That is why professional actors:inside and artists:inside will work together, maintaining friendly connections.

This is another reason why the script will be decisively developed together during the rehearsal process. This will not produce a compromise, but on the contrary a jointly developed and supported understanding.

The dialogues and plots are of course one of the central elements of this comedy. Whereas in most commercial films it is still primarily heterosexual couple relationships that are the focus of the emotional turmoil, the task now is rather to deal with changing constellations of community, in which the idea of a couple relationship dominates less than the comically complicated togetherness in diverse, more flexible relationships and living communities.

In style and tone, the film ventures into a mix of American heist movie and French nouvelle vague comedy, political spy thriller and philosophical sitcom. It's as if Jacques Rivette were making a gangster movie from a script by Jerry Seinfeld

The film is aimed at all ghosts, gangsters and young professionals! To all those who want to get through these hard times protected and healthy with some cultural entertainment and still think vertically, horizontally and crosswise. But also to those who sometimes catch themselves with empty thoughts and actually don't find that so bad.

The material connects the social dimension of the construction of reality with the individual personal construction of identity in terms of content. Thus, the construction of the outside world - through its social contexts and its discourses - is linked to the construction of the individual himself. The negatively connoted concept of the "reality denier" is thus given a new positive connotation. Cinema experience is always also distance from oneself, because in cinema it is always obvious: another life is possible.
It is important that we also oppose the free-market film reality, the funding and broadcasting companies. That's exactly why we need your support.

The German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) will provide us with the equipment needed for the shoot, as well as initial funding. We have already secured part of the necessary budget, but we need at least 5,000 euros more to realize the project. We are also facing a special production process due to Corona. All the money raised goes into the production of the film, and all those involved work for free.