Titel: Systemsprenger | System Crusher
About the movie:
If children don’t simply function the way our society wants them to, they are quickly given the title “Behaviourally Striking” and it is precisely this quite complex topic that director Nora Fingscheid would like to deal with in her debut film “System Springer”. The nine-year-old Bernadette (Helena Zengel), who prefers to call herself Benni, explodes any system with her behavior and drives all the guns on which one would probably not expect from such a young child. She provokes, beats herself up, spits, screams, consistently breaks rules, has destructive outbursts of rage and it doesn’t matter how old her counterpart is. Through her behaviour she wanders through various special schools, residential groups, foster families and also into child psychiatry, but nowhere does she stay long and almost every adult caregiver is overwhelmed with Benni. If Benni returns to a place where she has been before, this usually meets with clear rejection from the caregivers. Accordingly, the circle of adults to whom Benni entrusts himself is small. What Benni is looking for, however, is nothing more than security and love, which she doesn’t get from her mother, because she is also completely overwhelmed with her oldest child. She even cheers the problem on by making promises to Benni again and again, which she usually doesn’t keep. Furthermore, Benni has also experienced traumatic experiences at home in the form of violence. Benni is mostly haunted by this violence in her dreams but also in her everyday life. So she loses her complete control when someone grabs her face.
Mrs. Bafané (Gabriela Maria Schmeide), a lady from the Youth Welfare Office, is very committed and cordial towards the young Benni and wants to give her a stable home. For this she sets many levers in motion, among them with an anti-violence trainer for delinquent youths. Micha (Albecht Schuch) is now supposed to go to school as a school companion. When he manages to get Benni to attend school, he quickly realizes what kind of child he is dealing with, because it only takes a few minutes until another child is seriously injured in class. So Benni is quickly back on the agenda among the specialists and one would prefer to place her in a normal psychiatric ward. A step that goes too far for Micha. He suggests to take Benni for three weeks to a hut in the forest where there is neither electricity nor internet. At this place Benni seems to calm down a bit and she also opens herself to Micha. Because the two are among each other, Benni increasingly discovers a kind of father figure in Micha, in whom she can also feel security, but Micha sees herself in a growing conflict with his professionalism regarding the dwindling distance. The concern for the child’s future is clearly written in his face, so that he, like Mrs. Bafané, cannot simply leave the child alone in the rain.
Conclusion:
With her fictional story Nora Fingscheid has created an emotional roller coaster with many ups and downs in Benni’s life. If we see Benni in the first moments of the movie, many viewers will surely catch themselves thinking… “Please don’t be such a child”. But in the course of the movie this attitude might change, when the more detailed backgrounds become clearer and you also get to see the many positive sides of Benni. The movie shows that even the most complicated children can have a deep-rooted reason why they behave so conspicuously. It also shows how difficult and sometimes helpless even the trained professionals feel, even though they always try to overlook the chaos a child can leave behind. The film invites to think, but also leaves a lot open at the end. But that’s also good, because as a child our life only begins. What comes later, we never know at this point in time.
Actors:
Helena Zengel (Benni)
Albrecht Schuch (Michael Heller)
Gabriela Maria Schmeide (Mrs. Bafané)
Lisa Hagmeister (Bianca Klaaß)
Melanie Straub (Dr. Schönemann)
Victoria Trauttmansdorff (Silvia)
Maryam Zaree (Elli Heller)
Tedros Teclebrhan (Robert)
Director:
Nora Fingscheidt
Information about the film incl. short film excerpt and seasons:
https://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.html?film_id=201913679
Pictures from the Q&A at the Berlinale Palast (Word Premiere):
