"Der Stein zum Leben"
Documentary
Director, Cinematographer, Producer: Katinka Zeuner
Editor: Anna Pesavento
79 min | Deutschland 2018
Screening dates:
https://www.dersteinzumleben-film.de/termine
Aktuell nominiert für den Bild-Kunst Schnittpreis 2019 von Filmplus https://www.filmplus.de/82.html
Ver.di Preis für Solidarität, Menschlichkeit und Fairness DOKLeipzig 2018
Lobende Erwähnung der Jury des Dokumentarfilmpreises des Goethe-Instituts DOKLeipzig 2018
Lobende Erwähnung der Jury Bester Dokumentarfilm Achtung Berlin Festival 2019
Preis der Ökumenischen Jury Achtung Berlin Festival 2019
A circus wagon and a shipping container serve as stonemason Michael Spengler’s workshop.It is here that he receives people in mourning. Together they design headstones that tell of the deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Neustadt have lost their two-year-old son. Through their dialogue with Michael they find the words to express their emotions, words that become form and substance—their child’s breath is to be represented in a fragile limestone. Hardburg Stolle is a woman of few words, through Michael’s guidance she dauntlessly swings the hammer that splits a boulder and feels a sense of strength thathad been long buried. The Jacob family searches for the essence of their grandfather’s life: lover of nature, bon vivant, patriarch. What should an object that encapsulates him look like? Michael approaches the material and the people with great sensitivity and accompanies each family on a process that often takes months, one decision at a time. The film tells the story of this difficult and intimate process and shows how working on the stone makes death concrete in the truest sense of the word. As the stone takes on its form, the families discover a new relationship with the deceased—and to life.