It’s hard to find a more popular city than Venice. But what is a dream for many people has become a nightmare for the residents. This film shows cruise ships and coaches spilling their loads of tourists at the banks of the old town, from which they flood squares, bridges and alleys. The tourists may bring money – especially for the big corporations -, but they are also the curse of this city.
This film follows a few residents, perhaps the last of their kind, through their Venice. They show an infrastructure on the verge of collapse. Food stores are rare; schools and post offices have closed, replaced by ever more hotels and piers for huge cruise ships. “What can you do?” a Venetian woman asks resignedly. “Sell glassware and souvenirs?” She too rents out her house to pay for its refurbishment. Another born Venetian is forced to move to the mainland because he can’t afford the rent. Only foreigners and rich Italians can pay the expensive prices per square meter, an embittered real estate agent concludes. Only 60000 residents still live in the historic city centre today. The same number of people visit the city every day. Venice is degenerating into an open air museum. The film takes a sobering look behind the picture postcard idylls of Doge’s Palace, Rialto Bridge and the pigeons of St. Mark’s Square.

– Antje Stamer

Enea is 27, a young man with ordinary needs. What’s unusual is his direct way of expressing them. He carries his desire for a woman like a banner. Enea is autistic and often unable to interpret the reactions of the girls he approaches in the street. And he has yet to learn that it won’t exactly be the dream girl from the magazine who will say yes. Since he never had sex in his life, his friends Alex and Carlo, the director of the film, want to help him. Together they embark in an old VW bus on a journey from Italy through Austria to Germany. Because there is a place there where people like Enea with a “special need” can literally feel their way towards sexuality.
Sex in our society is usually charged with high expectations. Many people have trouble separating fantasy from reality, sexuality from love. Consequently, the film does not treat Enea as a special case. It follows its protagonist with great empathy on this all-male summer trip which is to become a journey of discovery into the world of feelings for all three. The camerawork makes this road movie seem very natural, while an instinct for tragicomic scenes adds a light touch.

Lars Meyer

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Golden Dove in the German Competition Documentary Film 2013