Fremder Freund

True to life may be the best expression to describe this film. And with a lust for life. Filmed in a fictional student environment with agile tiny DV cameras that also manage to find their way around small spaces and at busy parties. True to life is also the story. When student Chris (Antonio Wannek) looks for a roommate, he comes across fellow student Yunes (Navid Akhavan). Yunes was born in Yemen, but grew up in Germany. They soon develop a close relationship with each other and do much more together than roommates normally do. Their difference in background does not seem to play any role at first. First there are the girls: Julia (Mina Tander) and Nora (Mavie Hörbiger), with whom they go on excursions and to parties. But they also quarrel. And they even study. But Yunes starts taking life and his own Islamic background increasingly seriously. And one day he has disappeared without trace. A couple of weeks before September 11. The makers were inspired by a widely reported true event. The attack on the World Trade Center was conceived at the kitchen table of a student apartment on Marienstrasse in Hamburg-Harburg. They too were students with friends and girlfriends. Or: how strange can your friend be. (GjZ)