A LA CARTE

production design and special effects, 2019
short film, 25 min

A businesswoman and a businessman with their assistants are having lunch in a restaurant and talk about alleged social topics such as smalltalk and privat life as a side stage of the actual negotiations. At the table they avoid speaking openly, instead they try to compete in absurd ways. They compete in ordering and eating food, they collect bizarr amounts of signatures from each other. On the contrary they negotiate and plot frankly while being at the toilet, in order to gain most advantage after the inevitable yet hopeless contracting to be done. After all trump cards are played without having a clear dominator, the negotiations escalate into a shakespearian battle of words, stabbing and poisoning, after which the assistants scavenge the leftovers.
A LA CARTE is an absurd chamber play, which stages the total blending of business and life in comic and bizarr ways.

production design
The competitive atmosphere of the story is continued in the design of the restaurant space, which takes the form of an arena, and the tables, which combine features of dining and gaming tables. In keeping with the chamber play-like staging and the "business stage performance" of the protagonists, the restaurant itself is reminiscent of a theater stage with its rather simple arrangement and elements such as heavy red curtains. Through various manufactured props, furniture and spatial elements, the scenographic interventions and exaggerations create a distorted image of a familiar situation.

screenplay, director: Valle Döring

production design: Leonie Ohlow

production design assistance: Anja Ruschival

costume: Alexandra Besta, Domna Saliari

special effects: Leonie Ohlow, Nelly Corsten

camera: Jason Stewart

production: Elenya Bannert, Sophia Schiller

music: Lucia Schiller

cast: Doris Conrad, Peter W. Herrmanns, Jannik Mühlenweg, Elena Nyffeler

poster: Yannick Nuss