Exploring bold new works from filmmakers around the world, the 53nd New Directors/New Films, our annual festival co-presented with the Museum of Modern Art, officially kicks off on April 3. Ahead of the festival, get to know the filmmakers who speak to the present and anticipate the future of cinema.
Katharina Huber shares her filmmaking process while creating A Good Place.
What made you first want to be a director?
To be a director was never a decision [I made]. Ironically, I wanted to be a painter.
Was there a film or director you were inspired by or continue to be inspired by?
Yes, there are films and directors and I also discover new works from time to time. I haven’t watched that many films regularly, but the main inspiration is not coming from films.
In your own words, tell us about your film. What should audiences know?
It is an attempt to find out how the inside can be transferred to the outside but also to find out what this inside actually is or is supposed to be and where it wants to go. The film is also about the question of progress and whether it is worth striving for, and if so, how it can be forced [ahead].
What does it mean to you to show your film at New Directors/New Films?
It is an exciting opportunity for the film to communicate with a new audience.
What was the biggest lesson you learned during the making of your film?
To listen to smart people but also to one’s own intuition.
What else do you enjoy doing outside of filmmaking?
Walking.
What’s a film you saw recently that you enjoyed?
A Perfect World by Clint Eastwood.
Economic yet expansive, at once intricately engaged with present-day anxieties and steeped in a sparingly realized speculative future, the debut feature from Katharina Huber (who has worked largely in animation until now) radically reimagines the hangout film against an apocalyptic backdrop. A Good Place follows the daily routines and companionship of two young women, Güte (Clara Schwinning) and Margarita (Céline De Gennaro), who eke out a living in a remote, sparsely inhabited farming village as radio broadcasts describe an unfolding global crisis and count down to the launch of a spacecraft that might save humanity. With an incomparable sense of atmosphere and style, Huber—who wrote, directed, edited, and produced the film—filters and displaces her characters’ fears and comradery onto an enigmatic narrative about survival and isolation. Winner of the awards for best emerging director and best performance (for Schwinning) in the 2023 Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present section.
Katharina Huber’s A Good Place screens on April 4 & April 7 with a Q&A with Katharina Huber. New Directors/New Films takes place April 3-April 14. Explore the lineup and get tickets.
