ARBORETUM

2020 · Julian Richberg · Germany · 80 min

Section:

10th May @ 18:45 Golem Alhóndiga (Sala 2)

Erik and his best friend Sebastian are two teenagers in a small town on the German border that once ran between East and West. Their parents are struggling with their own demons and they are bullied at school. Life doesn‘t seem to offer the two outsiders any perspective either. And so they start planning their revenge on their tormentors and do shooting exercises with the old NVA rifle of Erik‘s father. Driven by a voice from the swamp, Erik increasingly drifts into the darkness. Only when he meets a young punk girl his world suddenly turn upside down. And so, he has to choose between what makes him happy and his dark thoughts, which seem inseparable from his friendship with Sebastian. But in a world of violence, there is inevitably an escalation that will shake the foundations of the small village on the edge of the former German-German border forever.

Born in 1992, he grew up in the middle of Germany, where he discovered his love of film at an early age. Equipped with MiniDV camera he shot his first small movies at the age of 5 and pursued the goal to become a filmmaker the next years. He moved to Berlin to study Communication Design at the HTW Berlin. During this time, he founded the short film collective Argonauta, which served as a playground for various projects. Within the framework of this collective, various short films were made which were shown at film festivals throughout Germany. In 2018 he finished his studies and shot his feature film debut Arboretum on his own means. Since 2019 Julian has been working as a freelance director for music videos and commercials.