In the film "Dankbar" I tell a metaphorical tale about the practice of happiness — not as an external achievement, but as an inner experience of gratitude.
I work with domestic materials: the film is shot on a phone, with frame-by-frame animation made of charcoal, clay, and paper collage. Shells, roots of a dead plant, and small objects stored for years in old boxes become at once ordinary and symbolic. The soundtrack combines my voice, recordings of whale songs, and fragments of the German language — as part of the experience of vulnerability and restarting life in migration.
My domestic and personal art becomes a space of closeness and care in the process of contact. The viewer is invited to enter it as a witness and participant in an archetypal journey of the hero.
The word "Dankbar" becomes the key: it opens the meaning and sets the tone of the film.
The word "Dankbar" becomes the key: it opens the meaning and sets the tone of the film.
