Karla
Kinospielfilm
in festival submission - will be released in 2025

Synopsis

 „You have to listen to children. It is their life after all.” (Maya, 8 years)

1962 – A girl is a witness on trial. She presses charges against the people who should protect her. The fight in court becomes the fight for her life.
KARLA is 12 years old when she single-handed presses charges against her parents. She demands protection from years of sexual assault by her father. For this she is ready to testify as a witness and with a torn heart to sacrifice the contact with her family.
The encounter with the judge is the blink of fate, that Karla has waited for as long as she can remember. This could be her chance to escape the horror, the fright and the shame and finally live a self-determined life. Karla knows that she has to do everything in her power for the judge to believe her. But this wish has its pitfalls.
“Karla” is based on an authentic court proceeding in the early sixties, that seeks a way in dealing with child assault survivors that could still be exemplary today.
Judge Lamy wants to help Karla but she refuses to answer his questions. She can’t…she won’t. She insists to tell her story in her own way with the unspeakable remaining unsaid.
In the struggle to understand Karla, the judge will understand at some point: She has to tell her story self-determined, even if it harms her, because having to talk about some things would be worse.  Karla's dilemma touches LAMY deeply. Legally, however, she has no chance. Or has she?
Inspired by Karlas courage, now the judge practices a form of reaching a verdict that is exemplary. For it has a conscience behind the mirrored surfaces of legislation: one that sees people without betraying the law.
And that’s how Karla’s story is, in a way, also legal history and is relevant until today. For the dignity of child witnesses in child assault cases – sadly is - still impeachable.

Cast
Elise Krieps as Karla, Rainer Bock as Richter Lamy, Imogen Kogge as Frau Steinberg, Torben Liebrecht as Karl Ebel, Katharina Schüttler as Viktoria Ebel, Robert Hungerbühler as Staatsanwalt Fries, Carlotta von Falkenhayn as Ada, Luis Vorbach as Franz Ebel

Produced by Jamila Wenske and Melanie Blocksdorf

Screenplay by Yvonne Görlach

Cinematography by Florian Emmerich

Montage by Isabel Meier

Directed by Christina Tournatzes

Awards
Winner of JETS Initiative 2021

LINK TO TRAILER: COMMING SOON

CARGO
Shortfilm, Fiction, 15 min, 2019

Synopsis
2015 - 71 refugees fight for their survival as they are smuggled from the Serbian-Hungarian border to Austria in an airtight truck. Despite the increasing cries - and the telephone monitoring on the smuggling gang by the Hungarian police - the smugglers continue their transport.
Cargo is based on a true story that happened 2015 in Hungary and Austria. The film and parts of the dialogue are based on the telephone recordings of the Hungarian police which were made public during the court case against the smugglers.

Cast
Ovanes Torosyan as Ivo, Yordan Danchev as Menko, Zainab Alsawah as Sahar, Nora Móhi as Elin, Bader Khlifi as Samsara

Cinematography by Alexander Gruber
Produced by Matthias Nerlich und Felix Parson
Montage by Ursula Ambach
Sound Design by Daniel Bautista, Julian Riegl, Tschangis Chahrokh
Written and directed by Christina Tournatzes