Due to rising rents in the city, Rainer (Hanno Koffler), his pregnant wife Nadine (Anna Blomeier) and their 13 year old daughter Doreen (Dora Zygouri) attempt to turn over a new leaf in the countryside. The family seems to settle into their new environment well at first, even though Doreen misses her old house. Rainer gets a job as a construction manager, Nadine does extra shifts at the hospital in order to finance the building of a house, and Doreen befriends the wealthy neighbor‘s daughter Mara. But then Rainer loses his construction manager job. When he and his colleagues have to bear harassment from their greedy new superviser Jürgen Kleeman (Andreas Döhler) and the unscrupulous Mara (Lilith Julie Johna) pushes sensible Doreen to to more and more bad things, the events in the seemingly small town idyll get completely out of hand. Director Mia Maariel Mayer, who co-wrote the film with her partner and main actor Hanno Koffler, has made a thrilling, oppressive, 100 minute film that premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at the 2021 Berlinale. THE SEED shows how money rules the world with the help of a story about a likeable family. The ice-cold, greedy company heir Klose (Robert Stadlober) and his henchman Kleeman could come off as furious, exaggerated parodies, if there weren‘t many real-life examples of them. While the understanding Rainer and his daughter, who get along well with each other, try to go against the capitalist system they are trapped in in their own way, the film audience can already guess how this battle will go out, even though the tension keeps inexorably rising right until the film‘s end.

Stefanie Borowsky (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy