Ghosts (2005 film)

Gespenster is a 2005 German film directed by Christian Petzold. Petzold also cowrote the screenplay with Harun Farocki. The film was presented at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival, where it was officially entered into competition.

Plot
The film portrays a day, a night and the following day in the life of a teenage orphan, Nina, who lives in a group home. Nina is shy, introverted and lives only in the past, which she tries to fabricate in her diary. She meets Toni, a young woman living on the street who is her exact opposite: she concerns herself only with surviving the present moment.

They meet Françoise, who has recently been released from a mental hospital in Berlin and now wanders the city aimlessly. Unable to give up the hope of finding her daughter, Marie, who was abducted many years ago, she is also arrested by the past. Françoise believes she recognizes Nina as her daughter. Her husband, Pierre, tries patiently to convince her to return with him to France.

When Nina is abandoned by Toni after a party she goes looking for the place where she had encountered Françoise. She hopes that she finally might have found a real mother. Although Françoise is there, at the film's end Nina is left bitterly disappointed.

Cast

 * Julia Hummer - Nina:
 * Sabine Timoteo - Toni
 * Marianne Basler - Françoise
 * Aurélien Recoing - Pierre
 * Benno Fürmann - Oliver
 * Anna Schudt - Kai
 * - Heimleiterin
 * - Mathias
 * Victoria Trauttmansdorff - Mathias' Mutter

Awards

 * 2005: Findling Award
 * 2006: German Film Critics Association Award - Best Feature