Nachtschichten

Night Shifts

A 2010, 97 min, 35 mm (HD)
Mischief Films

A film about Berlin. This is not a symphony of a metropolis, of course, it’s more of a film noir. Helicopters with infrared cameras circle in the night sky. At the same time, graffiti artists are protected by the darkness while they leave their signatures behind. DJ Mieko Suzuki is justified in claiming that the night is more colorful than the day. The homeless are fed and cared for, an insomniac plays basketball, ducks are fed, and wild boars are chased away. Ivette Löcker weaves a delicate web that connects the urban night owls, some of them with garish markings, others sunk in timeless melancholy.

Trailer

Awards

Festivals

Synopsis

During her nightly rounds a security guard feeds a duck that has happened onto the grounds of a factory. A homeless man tries to find a warm place that’s protected from the blowing snow so he can bed down. A night-time wanderer tries to flee from his restlessness in the moonlit night, and finds consolation in the city’s beauty.

The film shows people in Berlin who are invisible during the day, having chosen to live their lives at night. Initially, the idea was to accompany them in a search for the motives behind their shifted rhythms and make tangible the form and order that can be found in today’s big-city nights. While some people chose to work and live at night, fate made the choice for others. Some people take advantage of the darkness to operate in secret, and for others it is a new home. My intention was to explore on film the tension between a pragmatic routine for spending or organizing the night and the existential dreams and fears that seem to be an inevitable result. In extensive observations and conversations with these individuals we discover the tensions and ambivalences, and also the promising freedoms produced by their lifestyle. The moments when hopelessness, fear and despair or the struggle against them become visible show the fragility of night’s freedoms.

DIAGONALE jury’s comments on awarding the 2011 Grand Documentary Film award to Ivette Löcker:

Taking a look into the night requires more than eyes. One must touch, feel and recognize. Ivette Löcker listens to the city. She’s familiar with its numerous layers and abysses. She weaves a finely structured web connecting her protagonists’ nocturnal doings. Her gaze makes everyone it meets shine.

In return she’s richly rewarded: with their trust, with newly fallen snow that lights up the night for her film, and even with the appearance of a stranger to the city, where animals dare to leave their hiding places to explore.

Freedom and uncertainty, security and fear are the themes of this gentle and fragile film, which enters the field of tension between the anonymous big city and the faces of its residents.

Presskit

Nachtschichten_Presskit_de.pdf

Nachtschichten_Presskit_en.pdf

Image 1920 x 1080

Image 1920 x 1080