SOMMERHÄUSER

1976, the height of summer. A heat wave. Everybody is sweating. The wasps are even more aggressive than usual. In the midst of it all, a German family who are spending the dog days in their communal garden – just as they always do. Yet the passing of their overbearing matriarch Sophie reveals fine cracks in the family’s relationships while subtly changing how they interact. While the adults argue about the sale of the property, the children are free to roam the garden and the neighborhood. Suddenly the news of the disappearance of a little girl disrupts the placid summer idyll…

Director

SONJA MARIA KRÖNER was born in Munich in 1979. At the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, she majored in Philosophy and Literature and studied Screenwriting and Directing at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). She received a media art scholarship from the Kirch Foundation and the HFF Munich for her video installation SIX DOORS, a peep show about six women in six phases of life shown in the Annual Art Show at Haus der Kunst in 2010. After making her graduation film ZUCCHINIBLÜTEN, she worked on the installations THE BLACK HOLE and FLIPBOOK NEWS (a walk-in flip book), followed by her feature film THE GARDEN, which premiered at the Munich International Film Festival 2017.

Sonja Maria Kröner (photo © elektrostar.net) photos © Walker+Worm Film/Marc Reimann