Synopsis
In her documentary family saga WALCHENSEE FOREVER, director Janna Ji Wonders embarks on a deeply personal voyage of discovery spanning a century: She takes us from the family café at the Bavarian Walchensee to San Francisco to the infamous "Summer of Love“ and discovers the secrets of her family to track down their role in the generation chain. Surrounded by mountains, lake Walchensee rests in its endless dynamic and is the dramaturgical center of their life and this film.WALCHENSEE FOREVER is a very modern, soft and feminine documentary and a poetic project about generations of women, the circle of life and about the bond to one’s own roots.
Statement of the Jury Compass-Perspektive-Award:
This film is a crystal. The longer you look at it, the more you discover new facets. It portrays women of a family in Bavaria over five generations. Supplemented by extraordinary material obtained from the family's private archive, the protagonists report honestly, cleverly and directly to the camera. Accordingly, an overall picture of private life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries emerges from these individual stories. Everything that is told remains personal and individual and, not least because of the modest attitude of the filmmaker and her protagonists, it develops an overwhelming strength. Cleverly assembled, clearly filmed and narrated and produced with warm-heartedness, we listen to and watch Apa, Norma, Anna, Frauke and Janna. The silent chronicler of it all is the Walchensee, which connects all their lives.