Datsche

For those looking for refuge from troubled times, the last safe haven might be…Germany. But Europe’s new superpower is a land of strange habits and rules that are not there to be broken.

The film “Datsche” by Lara Hewitt is “Great cinema in a small garden”: a summer, many barbecue sausages and open garden doors are sometimes all it takes to remember that much more connects us than separates us. A film for everyone who longs for home or has already found it. A declaration of love to Germany and the strength that lies in the community … and all this in a film for which a native Englishwoman is responsible for.

Summary:

Valentine Hermann, an out-of-work New York actor has travelled to Berlin to the summer to discover his German roots and stay at the ‘datsche’ or summer cottage that his dead grandfather has left to him. Only the datsche isn’t actually in Berlin, it’s out in in former East Germany on a garden allotment colony that’s full of old people who seem to think the Berlin Wall never fell, and where not everybody is foreigner-friendly. Especially not Gregor, a neighbour with passions for hedge-trimming and nationalism. Which is a problem for Valentine, since he happens to have a refugee hiding in his datsche attic.

Adam blames the bad timing of his arrival in Germany as the reason why his application for asylum has been denied. But now he faces deportation  – that is if he is found. Valentine allows Adam to stay at the datsche and promises not to tell anyone about him. But it’s not long before Valentine tires of the quiet allotment life and accidentally invites some random people from the internet to join him in his garden. Cue Maria, a beautiful and mysterious Greek woman; Zorro, a charming Argentinian drug dealer, and Stefan, a bumbling blond Bavarian who travels with his own tent and gun.

Adam is not happy about the new arrivals, and nor is Gregor….

About Lara Hewitt:

Lara Hewitt grew up in Lancastershire, England, and early on discovered her passion for all forms of artistic expression, from pantomime to theatre to singing, always with the aim of constructive exchange between young and old, disabled and non-disabled people, across all cultural boundaries. After completing her university degree in theatre and education, she worked internationally as an artist and settled in Berlin in 2012. Here she brought a punk adaptation of “Allice in Wonderland” to the stage, wrote and sang in a jazz musical and began “Datsche“, her first feature film project, shot in her allotment garden near Potsdam.