AUF DER SUCHE

Simon has disappeared. The young doctor from Germany, who lives and works in Marseille, leaves behind a deserted flat and endless questions. Reduced to despair his mother Valerie asks her son’s former boyfriend for help. Reluctantly Jens agrees, and thus begins a race against time. Both roam an unknown city, an unknown language, an unknown country. Valerie’s sole wish is to speak once more with her son, but what would she say to him? The missing person appears to have steered clear of both mother and ex-boyfriend for a long time. Piece by piece they manage however to reconstruct his travels and stumble upon a few surprises in the process.

Nothing is as it seems, and correspondingly things will never be the same again. Whilst Valerie remains unable to comprehend her son’s life and sexuality, Jens is confronted by the fact that his ex-lover has meanwhile started a new chapter in life and entered new relationships. Jens and Valerie are lonely hunters with scarred souls; for both the initial search evolves into an examination of their own, respective shortcomings. A new beginning is possible, maybe.

The director’s third feature film is an incisive portrait of varying visions of life. The German-French co-production narrates how a foreign city and culture can become an object of projection for one's own soul and thus assist in breaking free from deeply rooted modes of thought.