Lonig & Havendel

Claudia Tuyết Scheffel studied film at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg where she graduated with her first feature film Lonig & Havendel. In 2021 she published her first novel Scherben im Plateau. 

A word from the selection committee:
One could hardly conceal the pleasure of watching Lonig & Havendel. An unusual debut - the film drifts between sharply contrasting tones, seeking - through mise-en-scène alone - to link the experience of Truc Lam, a young adult on holiday in Austria, with that of children from the Vietnamese diaspora. The stories readily blur and intertwine, and we gladly surrender to this drift, guided by the filmmaker’s enigmatically gentle gaze, as she carefully distils the pieces of a narrative, forever on the verge of unravelling. And what a spark it gives off! It’s everything one could wish for in a first film: inventive, carving out its own spaces to harbour its missing images, generous in its refusal to fuss over excess, always preferring to expand its story rather than contain it. Within its beauty, Claudia Tuyết Scheffel surprises above all in the variety of ways she touches us, keeping the viewer both moved and amused from the first to the very last frame. 

Pierre Guidez