Films by Frederic Schuld

Germany 2024, 24 min
by Rebecca Blöcher

My mother has led a very unorthodox life, which has taken her both to palaces and under bridges. She lived in her small car for over 10 years until she could no longer walk and the car gave up right after that. [Rebecca Blöcher]The mother of animation director Rebecca Blöcher didn’t want to live an ordinary life. She wanted 'something more,' she explains in this stop-motion film. The people around her didn’t understand—in a letter written in 1968, a girlfriend criticizes her for going out on her own and making men jealous, while advising her to dress in a more “feminine” way and to join a cooking course. Blöcher’s mother brushed aside the advice. Years later still, she divorced her husband and stepped into the big wide world. In Mama Micra the mother is a figure made of felt who recalls, in her own voice, her powerful urge to find freedom: “I was a real vagabond,” she explains. She traveled to Syria and Beirut, and envied the nomads in the desert. During the last 10 years of her life she lived in a Nissan Micra, washing in the morning in hotel bathrooms and sneaking into breakfast rooms to eat. Her freedom came at a cost. She lost contact with her daughter, who counterpoints her mother’s account with her own recollections. But no harm is irreparable in this affectionate film. [IDFA]The jury: “The filmmaker’s personal and family story, particularly her mother’s life, unfolds through a narrative enriched by diverse animation techniques. These vividly reimagined moments beyond old photographs bring untold realities to life. Themes of personal freedom, aging, and abandonment are poignantly explored, forging a deep emotional connection with viewers. Through the visual magic of animation, the filmmaker delicately portrays her inner world, preserving the bonds of affection and memory, even in the face of absence.”

Germany 2020, 81 min
by Valentin Riedl

Carlotta cannot recognize faces, not even her own. For her, human faces are no bastion of trust, but places of fear and confusion. She is one of the 1% of all people whose part of the brain responsible for facial recognition does not work properly. With his film LOST IN FACE, neuroscientist Valentin Riedl travels through Carlotta’s universe, full of anthropomorphic animals, lucid dreams and bumpy false paths. He peels back her charming, idiosyncratic solutions that she employs to be able to join the masses of human conformity, until she one day decides to build a ship and leave her fellow humans. Her never-ending search for answers leads her to art—and thus an avenue to her own face and back to humanity. “As a neuroscientist and filmartist, Valentin merges abstract science with the artistic form of film to open a new world to the spectator” Wim Wenders

2020, 5 min
by Frederic Schuld

A British chimney sweeper describes his everyday routine of forcing young kids to become workers. While we observe a kid cleaning a chimney, the master's statement gets more personal with every sentence until we understand, that he is speaking about his own past. Being locked in a vicious circle there seems to be no exit."Based on a meticulously detailed letter, the hard-knock lives of young 19th century chimney sweeps are uncovered in this exquisite animation, which masterfully articulates the finer points of preparing children as young as four for a life of hard labour up the flues of the bourgeoisie." (Hot Docs, Eileen Arandiga)

Germany 2018, 5 min
by Valentin Riedl, Frederic Schuld

When Carlotta looks in the mirror, she doesn't recognize the image reflected back at her. This beautifully animated portrait explores the confusion that face blindness causes for a young child trying to make sense of her world, and ultimately, how this rare neurological condition gave Carlotta the gift of artistic expression. (hotDOCS, Eileen Arandiga)