YOUNG LIGHT
Adolf Winkelmann’s latest feature film is released on 12 May 2016
On 12 May YOUNG LIGHT, the new feature film from Adolf Winkelmann (DIE ABFAHRER, JEDE MENGE KOHLE, NORDKURVE, CONTERGAN), can be seen in the cinemas.
YOUNG LIGHT is a film about the situation in West Germany during the post-war period – before the skies over the Ruhr region became blue once more. In his latest film about home and growing up, Adolf Winkelmann depicts the industrialized Ruhr region in the 1960s from the perspective of a 12-year-old miner's son, Julian. At the same time Winkelmann explores the myths surrounding coalmines, daring to present an authentic view of the grimy world far beneath the surface of the Earth, where these proud miners worked so hard to make the economic miracle a reality.
With extraordinary visual intensity, YOUNG LIGHT captures the poetry of the novel of the same name by Ralf Rothmann (Im Frühling sterben, Milch und Kohle). The award-winning writer, who grew up in this region, is greatly impressed by the film version: "Winkelmann has created an independent work of art – a masterpiece with the potential of a classic! [...] With its almost metaphysical realism, the film has an iconic aspect for me: it presents images which are far more than what they initially appear to depict."
The top-quality cast of YOUNG LIGHT includes Charly Hübner, Lina Beckmann, Peter Lohmeyer, Caroline Peters, Stephan Kampwirth, Nina Petri and Ludger Pistor, while 13-year-old Oscar Brose, who plays the miner's son Julian, is an outstanding new discovery.
The production was filmed in the summer of 2015 at MMC Studios in Cologne and at original locations in the Ruhr – with a number of scenes shot in coalmines that are no longer in operation, such as the Auguste Victoria mine in Marl, which was closed at the end of 2015.
YOUNG LIGHT, with a screenplay written by the brothers Nils Beckmann and Till Beckmann together with Adolf Winkelmann, is a coproduction of FFP New Media (executive producer Michael Smeaton, producer: Greta Gilles) and Winkelmann Filmproduktion (producer: Christiane Schaefer), in association with WDR (program executives Götz Bolten and Christoph Pellander) and ARTE (program executive Andreas Schreitmüller). The film was made with the support of the NRW Film and Media Foundation, the Department of Culture and Media (BKM) and the German Film Subsidy Board (DFFF), and with kind assistance from the RAG Foundation and Evonik Industries AG.
YOUNG LIGHT, which has already been shortlisted for the 2016 German Film Prize, was premiered at the Zoopalast in Berlin as part of the LOLA at Berlinale section of this year's Berlin Film Festival.
On Sunday 1 May (International Labor Day) the official premiere will take place in the Lichtburg Cinema in Essen, with the director, actors and filmmakers present. Even before then the film has already received its first award in the Ruhr region: on 12 March YOUNG LIGHT was presented with the Best Film award at the 7th Recklinghausen Church Film Festival.
PR Material and Photographs:
pr agentur deutz
Tel. 0172 / 20 79 810
pr@presseagentur-deutz.de
www.pr-deutz.de
