At the age of 20, Joachim is unexpectedly accepted into the renowned acting school in Munich and moves into the villa with his grandparents, Inge and Hermann. Between the bizarre challenges of acting school and the eccentric, mostly alcohol-fueled rituals of his grandparents, Joachim tries to find his place in the world — without knowing what role he actually plays in it.

15-year-old Elfie literally and metaphorically inhabits a no-man’s-land between the two Germanies shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film deploys a neorealist aesthetic to reinforce the difficulties confronting the girl, and by inference, Germany.

German movie