DAMAGED LEMONS

DAMAGED LEMONS

DAMAGED LEMONS

Director: Naemi Ada
Feature film | Germany | 2024
68 min | Dolby 5.1

59th Hof International Film Festival
2025

Mavi is a family caregiver and feels torn between her own life – marked by psychological stress – and the responsibility for her chronically ill sister, Nalin. While her sister’s physical illness attracts attention, Mavi’s own mental state is simply overlooked. In a moment of overload she tries to distance herself from her sister and, in the heat of the moment, locks her in the kitchen.

Fleeing home, she meets Royat in a bar. Royat seems to live free from any and all responsibility. Mavi follows her to a house outside of the city, a place where people gather in search of answers to essential questions and, in doing so, she drifts further away from the person she usually is or is supposed to be. But the more she removes herself from her life, the more she falls victim to dissociation, gradually losing her sense of space and time – until Nalin and Mavi’s partner Khalil finally find her and bring her to a clinic.

With Binta Sophie Camara, Chris Scott, Daniel Hernandez, João Kreth d’Orey, Naomi Kelechi Odhiambo

Screenplay Naemi Ada, Sarah Miro Fischer, Cinematography Leyla Hoppe, Malcolm Saïdou, Editing Jin Ju Lee, Raffaello Lupperger, Celine Jünger, Sound Jonathan Dönges, Music Francesco Lo Giudice, Production Janna Fodor, Bocar Thiam, Noam Rapaport, Utku Erdogan