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Director's Statement
DISTANT LIGHTS is about a number of different people who are all connected through the fact that their story plays out in one place within 48 hours. The characters have to struggle - but they go on struggling and never give up. No matter whether it's over minor things such as a Communion dress, or - in the case of the refugees from Ukraine - over matters of life and death. I feel a great sympathy for these people who fight so hard for their happiness.
The title means everything and nothing. "Lichter" - Lights - are many things and nothing at all. They can be the Communion candles in the church, the lights of Slubice, which the refugees mistake for Berlin, or the lights of Beata's taxi. lt is a very broad, open title. A play on a word that can mean hope and danger.
This is a unique place: on the one hand you have the beauty of the Oder countryside, but there are no bathers or boats. You can teil that it is a border river. The border crossing itself is very spooky. Particularly at night, when you come from Frankfurt on the Oder: it is extremely bright, lit up by neon lights, like a U.F.O.
DISTANT LIGHTS might stimulate discussions. For example about how rich the West is, how it closes itself off, how we raise the borders. One can speculate about who really gives us the right to use inhuman means to prevent people from living here. But in the end, DISTANT LIGHTS is also about various relationships and love stories: a young couple, a father, his son - people who are forced to realize that in a changed reality, they cannot find a path that will lead them together again. They run towards each other, but ultimately miss each other. Perhaps this emotional aspect of DISTANT LIGHTS is ultimately more important than the political level.