UK Premiere: Reifezeit (Time of Maturity)

A young boy comes of age amid a challenging upbringing in this sensitive emblem of 1970s New German cinema.

Michael is often asleep when his mother, a sex worker, comes home. On the cusp of adolescence, Michael is looking to save up for a bike, and resorts to stealing from his schoolmates as a result. As he matures, Michael is forced to reconcile with the inscrutable realities of the adult world and the impact they have on his own existence.

These immaculately observed vignettes are typical of the Iranian filmmaker Sohrab Shahid Saless who for many years was based in Germany and is long overdue for reappraisal. This restored version of one of Saless’s greatest achievements puts him back on the map, emerging as a quietly impactful slice of life drama that forgoes an excess of dialogue in favour of crisp yet stylised visuals. The life of a lonely child in Berlin’s Wedding district emerges poetically, inspired by the Anton Chekhov quote, “I am like the wind blowing across the lonely fields”. Reifezeit is restored as part of a transnational project aiming to make the entirety of Saless’s oeuvre available again.

The restoration was done as part of a transnational project with the goal of making the entire oeuvre of director Sohrab Shahid Saless available again. He worked in Germany beginning in 1974 and died in 1998 in the US. With the support of the Goethe-Institut.

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