16/12/2024 - A girl with special abilities is at the centre of the German director's second feature, which is in the final stages of post-production

The shoot for Frédéric Hambalek's drama What Marielle Knows [+see also:
film review
interview: Frédéric Hambalek
film profile] took place earlier this year over a period of 20 days in and around Munich. The film is now in post-production. It is the second feature-length movie by the German director, who was born in Karlsruhe and studied in Mainz. Hambalek is very much interested in family dynamics and tends to explore the darker sides of them. His directorial debut, Model Olimpia [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], premiered in 2020 at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where it was part of the First Feature Competition. It tells the story of a highly disturbing mother-and-son relationship, in which the mother tries to cure her son of his sexually motivated, violent fantasies.

For his new film, Hambalek has again written the screenplay himself as well as taking on the role of director. What Marielle Knows is the film’s title and, at the same time, the name of its protagonist, the 12-year-old daughter of Julia and Tobias. When Marielle develops telepathic skills, the balance within the family begins to falter, and everyone soon realises that it had in fact been rather fragile from the start. Marielle's special abilities allow her to hear and see everything her parents do, also when she is not witnessing it directly. This means that she can follow her mother to work, where she seems to have a crush on a co-worker, or that she can experience the self-doubts of her father as he questions himself about his ability to be a strong leader for his family. Aware of this observation by their daughter, the parents' behaviour begins to change, and with it come unexpected consequences.

While the role of Marielle is played by young talent Laeni Geiseler, already seen in several recent TV series (Snow, The Empress, Inga Lindström), the rest of the cast includes a broad ensemble of German and Austrian thesps, such as Julia Jentsch (Electric Fields [+see also:
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interview: Lisa Gertsch
film profile], 8 Days in August [+see also:
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interview: Samuel Perriard
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trailer
film profile]), Mehmet Ateşçi (A Regular Woman [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Jöns Jönsson
film profile]) and Victoria Mayer (Invisible Sue [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). The cinematography is taken care of by Alexander Griesser, who previously worked with the director on Model Olimpia, while Bartholomäus M Kleppek (Skin Deep [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Alex Schaad
film profile]) was responsible for the production design, Mara Laibacher (Beyond the Blue Border) for the costumes, and Sabeth Kelwing Jimenez and Selina Schardt for the make-up.

What Marielle Knows is a production by Walker + Worm Film GmbH & Co KG, co-produced by ZDF - Das kleine Fernsehspiel and made in collaboration with MPS Sonnenstudio Köln. It was funded by the German Federal Film Board (FFA), the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and Medienförderung RLP. Farbfilm Verleih GmbH is overseeing the German distribution, although the release date of the movie is not yet known.

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