Deadweight

Axel Koenzen’s oceangoing debut feature, a Finnish-German co-production, premiered in the Forum section at the Berlin International Film Festival. Latest in a welcome flurry of oceangoing pictures that plunge viewers into the hard-knock realities of nautical life, Axel Koenzen’s enigmatically elliptical debut Deadweight positions itself at the more challenging end of the cinematic spectrum. Taking its tenor from an inscrutable lead performance by Tommi Korpela as the taciturn, grizzled and broodingly morose captain of a troubled container vessel, it’s strong on realism but deliberately uninvolving in terms of plot. (Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter)

Director's Biography
AXEL KOENZEN was born in Hilden, in the Rhineland region of Germany, in 1972. He studied photography at the International Center of Photography in New York and worked as a freelance photographer and visual researcher. He studied then at the DFFB – German Film and Television Academy Berlin. Deadweight is his first featurelength film. // Films (selection): Waxandwane (1999, short), Firn (2006, short), Drang (2009, short), Deadweight (2016)
European Panorama Fiction 2017
Axel Koenzen
Germany / Finland 2016
color
88 minutes
OV with English subtitles
Screenplay Horst Markgraf, Boris Doran, Axel Koenzen
Cinematography Alexander Gheorghiu
Editing Benjamin Mirguet
Sound/Sounddesign Markus Krohn, Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer
Music Pessi Levanto
With Tommi Korpela, Ema Vetean, Archie Alemania, Manuelito Acido, Frank Lammers, Loes Luca, Teun Kuilboer, Jeanne Balibar
Producer(s) Benny Drechsel, Karsten Stöter (Rohfilm, DE), Mark Lwoff, Misha Jaari (Bufo, FI)
Production
Rohfilm Idastraße 39 04315 Leipzig Germany contact@rohfilm.de www.rohfilm.de
Austrian Premiere
Weltpremiere / World Premiere
Berlin International Film Festival 2016

Premierenstatus / Premiere Status
Austrian Premiere