13 SEMESTER
Director: Frieder Wittich
Feature film | D | 2009
97 min | Dolby SRD
43rd Hof International Film Festival
2009
Momo quits his culinary training in his parents’ restaurant and leaves the East German provinces to go to Darmstadt and start studying Business Mathematics, a subject he was always very good in at school. At first full of vigor and confidence, he runs into a nerve-wracking situation trying to find a place to live, until he finally decides to share a three-room apartment with Bernd, a somewhat unfriendly Architecture student five years his senior. But out of their original partnership of convenience develops a “friendship for life”. Yet still, Momo has some initial difficulty acclimating himself to student life.
Over the course of the next 13 semesters, Momo experiences all the highs and lows that life as a student has to offer. At first he is very studious and attends all his lectures, hangs out with like-minded fellow students and spends two semesters abroad in Australia. But when he returns, he realizes that he has chosen the wrong major and calling it off now seems to be too late. Finally, in his seventh semester, his greatest desire is fulfilled: after falling in love with Kerstin, he forgets all about the whole purpose of his studies. Ultimately, he leads himself to financial ruin with a completely oversized business idea. His youthful enthusiasm is soon replaced by deep depression and existential questions like: What do I really want? What am I doing here? And for how much longer?