Stations of the Cross (2014)

Drama

Director: Dietrich Brüggemann
Writers: Anna Brüggemann, Dietrich Brüggemann
Starring: Lea van Acken, Franziska Weisz, Florian Stetter, Lucie Aron

Captured in fourteen fixed-angle, single-shot tableaux, Kreuzweg is an indictment of fundamentalist faith and an articulation of one teen’s struggle to define her own life.

Maria and her profoundly Catholic family practice a radical version of the faith. With her confirmation approaching, Maria internalizes the Church’s strict messages more than ever, particularly that of the power of sacrifice. Determined to choose her faith over all else, Maria sets out to mirror Christ’s journey to his own crucifixion in a series of escalating sacrifices, attempting to please a God she worships unquestioningly. Steered by a domineering mother and willingly tethered to the autistic younger brother she adores, Maria refuses to let anything derail her, including Christian, a classmate whose innocent flirting could ruin everything.

Plot summary from IMDb: Maria is 14 years old. Her family is part of a fundamentalist Catholic community. Maria lives her everyday life in the modern world, yet her heart belongs to Jesus. She wants to follow him, to become a saint and go to heaven - just like all those holy children she's always been told about. So Maria goes through 14 stations, just like Jesus did on his path to Golgatha, and reaches her goal in the end. Not even Christian, a boy she meets at school, can stop her, even if in another world, they might have become friends, or even more. Left behind is a broken family that finds comfort in faith, and the question if all these events were really so inevitable. STATIONS OF THE CROSS is an indictment and, at the same time, the legend of a saint. It's a story of religion, devotion and radical faith, and the film itself comes along just as radical as the subject matter, telling the story in only 14 fixed-angle long shots, allowing the viewer to contemplate the interactions on screen in an entirely different way than in a traditional film.

Awards: 9 wins & 7 nominations.
Runtime: 110 min
Unrat