Tant que tu es là

hi there,... before watching that film in Rotterdam, I didn't know what to expect. I heard a lot about that movie from press and friends but I went out before that film finished, thinking that I wasn't really interested in it (or i didn't feel in the mood). But then I realized that I couldn't stop thinking about the images the old man and the atmosphere. I was caught in this movie. and I still had them in my mind a couple of days. Without knowing where that all came from. That impressed me and I went in again on another festival and stayed until the end. It was absolutely worth it! It's incredible how subtle the film/the actors/the camera/the way of directing tears one into this very personal world and transforms the whole banality into a deep and intense (not only filmic)experience. You need to sit and wait a bit, but after 15 or 20 minutes your part of it. I really like to apologize for not being patient enough the first time!

I as well had the chance to attend a q&a afterwards. The director found beautifully words to explain it. You really feel that he and his camera woman live for that way of telling stories,... 100% sensitivity!

WHILE YOU ARE HERE (Germany) "He's asleep downstairs. I'm so excited I just don't know what to do." That's George (Michael Gempart), an elderly German pensioner, speaking into his tape-recorder diary, entries from which play on the soundtrack of this magnificent 80-minute film from 26-year-old writer-director Stefan Westerwelle, who made it as his senior project at Cologne's Academy of Media Arts. George is excited because Sebastian (Leander Lichti), the young hustler he's been hiring of late, has unexpectedly decided to stay the night. Both men need the company, and both gradually find resonance in the other's haltingly told stories of the various men (fathers, lovers, et al.) who've shaped their lives. This exquisitely designed and photographed film has a disjointed and ultimately very moving time scheme, and a vividly physical sense of how a man such as George — like single people the world over — surrounds himself with the photos and objects whose nearness soothes his soul. In its affinity for the movement of light and shadow across a domestic space, While You Are Here calls to mind the films of British master Terence Davies (The Long Day Closes and Distant Voices, Still Lives), while its appreciation for the daily rhythms of solitude makes it the cinematic equivalent of Christopher Isherwood's seminal novel of gay life, A Single Man. That's surely too much hyperbole for such a modest film, but this is gorgeous work from an exciting new filmmaker. (REDCAT, Sat., July 21, 9:30 p.m.) (CW)

This film was screen as part of the 2007 Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival. I had no expectation of the film as someone else choose it for me.

I actually like films that take time to develop, films that allow the characters to unfold and lets the story flow. Stillness is good. But this film though was just plain slow.

Credit must go to the two main actors. There was a sense of tension between them as two totally different people, misfits really, come together in a very awkward way. There were tender moments and sadness as we learned more about them.

I also liked the setting and the way it was shot. It was claustrophobic and monochrome and it added to the film's intimacy and reinforces the oddness of the characters.

I just don't understand the ending. What was the point of it all?

As long as you can suffer it! If you like watching people waking up, getting up, getting dressed, having a shower, preparing dinner, watching each other, having sex in the dark, then going back to bed to sleep... if you like tacky flats, narrow bedrooms and kitchens, long minutes of silence.... if you like getting bored for two hours, feeling the thrill of "real intimate false art", then you will like it. But if you don't, just try to see a good movie, there are thousands. "As long as you are here", but do we want to stay? This German movie got the award of the Torino gay film festival: Italian journalists still don't understand why the jury took such a bad decision, as the festival presented lot of talented movies. Maybe to be nice with a German, as they don't often get awards? Well, "The Lives of Others" did... but this one is excellent but not gay. So maybe it is a question of fashion. Germans are they "in" again? No matter what? Or maybe only for a hustler's glance of some directors?

Already the first scene, in which Mr. Kuhn repairs a broken porcelain bowl with affectionate accuracy, tells us about the essence of the protagonist's inner character. The inner and outer treasures he collected during a 70 years lasting live and that surround him still now, create a perfect personal microcosm in which Mr Kuhn lives absolutely satisfied.

The opposite: In this life contacts to the outer world are sporadic. Each week he allows himself to invite a young hustler to his home. The combination - an elder man and a boy - might sound a bit like "Death in Venice" or "Gods and Monsters" but indeed things become totally different - the relationship turns to the opposite: Georg (sensitively played by Michael Gempart) is far away from resignation or thanatophobia. In proportion to the young Sebastian (Leander Lichti) he rather overtakes the positive and optimistic part. His childlike joy to search for possibilities to offer little advertencies to others doesn't make him look like an old man. In fact he beautifully behaves like someone who discovered the way to reunite mature wisdom with innocent naivety.

Stefan Westerwelle's final project at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne is a very warmhearted debut, in which tiny gestures and precise looks allow the audience to have a gaze into a private and magical world. At the same time he beautifully and sensitively deals with the issue of homosexuality in advanced ages, so that it's clear, that it's nothing one has to be ashamed of. (Seen at Newfest NY)

Wonderful! --- If you don't like to have such a director in Los Angeles, well, we don't care - we like him to stay in Europe anyway! ---