After Jaguar und Regen and Goldland, Früchtchen is the third part of Brödl’s ‘equator cycle’. A fourth part is in preparation. Früchtchen is set on Sao Tomé, a tropical island off the west coast of Africa, precisely on the equator and once a colony of Portugal. Here an old lady, Ma, is on her deathbed. She calls her son But, who is sitting far away on the south side of the island on the beach. Her screaming becomes concrete: a gigantic breadfruit, at least two metres tall, falls right in front of the son’s beach hut. ‘Ma is calling me!’, the son realises. He calls the thing ‘little fruit’ and sets off. The news of the strange vegetable meteorite spreads like wild fire over the island. Reactions vary from surprise to amusement and from desire to disgust. But’s journey across the island, on his way to his mother, is filled with danger, magic and temptations…Früchtchen is a burlesque, an African fairy-tale. A humorous road-movie and – like many films made by Brödl – a docu-drama, for which he did extensive research before choosing his actors from among the local population. Ma is played by an old lady that Brödl met when he visited an old-people’s home after he spent weeks unable to get through to the people. Brödl: ‘My disgust at what I saw there gave me the idea for this story.’
