“I'd like to watch you shower. You don't dry yourself off. You sit on my lap. Then I'll dry you off. I want to caress your body. And I'd like to call you Lydia.” When Bernhard, a young man, finds these instructions in a letter to a young prostitute, the life of a family changes from the ground up. Because the author of this text is Bernhard's father and Lydia is the name of Bernhard's sister.
Stillleben creates a family universe with just a few strokes and hints, drawing the story of four people who have struggled with themselves and each other for many years. This fragile community implodes almost silently due to the suspicion of a pedophile assault. A story of suffering that was previously disguised as alcoholism becomes recognizable as a sexual obsession. In a non-judgemental and moralizing way, Stillleben poses the question of the beginning of guilt, addresses the participation of individual family members and at the same time takes on their advocacy. In his impressive feature film debut, filmmaker Sebastian Meise, born in Austria in 1976, describes the moment of shock, shows the cracks that open up in the family structure, the beginning of the aftershock. The Stillleben project, as well as the documentary film Outing, are based on the Berlin support program Kein Täter werden, which aims to help people with pedophilic tendencies to keep their addictions under control.
