“Zoe comes and goes as she pleases”. Without a fixed residence, her scant possessions held in a couple of plastic bags, and her record collection under her arm, mid-twentysomething Zoe wanders through the city, DJing in small clubs, and alienating acquaintances old and new with her unrelenting desire for freedom. One of her past friends throws her out of the house and sends on a bag full of post that she’s kept for Zoe for years. The letters awaken old memories, but her attempt to reconnect with the past eventually leads nowhere. Maren-Kea Freese’s widely acclaimed feature debut ZOE (Germay 1999), her graduation film at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, is the portrait of an uncompromising young woman whose precarious existence reflects the raw and provisional Berlin of the turn of the 21st century. Shot with a small budget on MiniDV, the film was recently digitally restored and is now available as a DCP in the Deutsche Kinemathek’s distribution range. (ah) (16.12.)
