Teenager Franny arrives at a small airport in Las Cruces, a desert town in New Mexico. As an exchange student from Brandenburg, her calm demeanour and wide-eyed curiosity help her adapt to the new environment. Initially shy, Franny quickly makes friends both at school and beyond, finding a circle of teenage girls with whom she can share the strange and bittersweet realities of growing up. Naturally, she also falls in love with the mysteriously charming Elliott. Then comes 9/11, shattering the illusion of carefree youth and togetherness, while its aftermath and the War on Terror shape the future in ways Franny cannot yet comprehend.
“I was an exchange student in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2001. The base for the film was my memories from that time. An exchange year can be such an important and transformative experience. But when you come back home and people ask you about it, you end up just saying something like “Yeah, it was nice”, because you think there is no way anybody could understand. This film is probably a very delayed way of doing that now, even if it is a fictionalized version of my own experience.” (Katharina Rivilis)
Katharina Rivilis
Born in 1985 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Rivilis grew up in Germany. She studied acting at the “Konrad Wolf” University of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg and has since worked extensively in theatre, film and television. She subsequently studied film directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), and her short films have won several international awards.