Fifteen Rooms

Director: Silke Schissler / 32 min. / 2016 / German (ST: English) / Germany

Even in a hospice, life goes on. Danka, the institution’s cleaning lady, experiences a lot in the course of her daily life, tidying these 15 rooms overlooking the roofs of Neukölln.There’s a lot of laughter and a lot of smoking, but also a lot of goodbyes. “Fifteen Rooms” is a film about living in a place of dying.

Director, Production: Silke Schissler
Cinematography: Florian Lampersberger
Editing: Rita Bakacs

Watch the film on Sooner!

A film about living in a place of dying.

Even in a hospice, life goes on. A mother-in-law may be annoying. A soft toy may offer consolation. The recollection of missed opportunities may create a sense of wistfulness. Danka, the institution’s cleaning lady, experiences a lot in the course of her daily life, tidying these 15 rooms overlooking the roofs of Neukölln. She is always happy to schmooze with the residents, or just to keep them company. There’s a lot of laughter and a lot of smoking, but also a lot of goodbyes to say. “Fifteen Rooms” is a film about living in a place of dying.

FIFTEEN ROOMS
Orig. Title: FÜNFZEHN ZIMMER

Genre: Short / Documentary
Duration: 32:56 min.
Spoken language: german
Subtitle: english
Footage: HD-DSLR
Video: color, H.264 fullHD
Audio: PCM Stereo
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Screening copy: DCP, BluRay, HD-File (h264)

CREDITS
Director: Silke Schissler
Producer: Silke Schissler
DOP: Florian Lampersberger
Editor: Rita Bakacs
Sounddesign: Han van Acoleyen
Color Correction: Florian Lampersberger
Finalising: Alex Töchterle

Silke Schissler, born 1979, studied Political Sciences in Münster and Berlin. Her passion for film began in a Berlin video collective working on social movements and unconventional personalities. She has led numerous film workshops for young people. From 2012-2016 she studied documentary filmmaking at the filmArche in Berlin.

Filmography (selection):
2016 – FIFTEEN ROOMS | Short-Documentary | Director, Producer
2016 – THESE FEW YEARS | Short-Documentary | Director, Producer
2015 – AS ALWAYS | Short-Documentary |Director, DOP
2014 – TWO | Short-Documentary| Director, Script, DOP, Editor

He who is afraid of death is also afraid of life“. That sentence has stuck with me for a long time. It’s easy to say, and yet it feels very different.

With “Fifteen Rooms” I wanted to approach a place where dying is central: the hospice. It quickly became clear to me that everything here revolves around life, around the “good life” until the end, especially during their last moments. The film approaches its subject without pathos, in a Berlin style and with great matter-of-factness.

My focus was on the perspective of the employees, the housekeeping and nursing teams. How do you deal with daily confronting death and the recurring last moments? What insights do their perspectives give us into the individuality and diversity of living and dying?

For me, “Fifteen Rooms” was an approach to dying as something deeply intrinsic to life, and thus also very much alive.

FESTIVALS
Festival appearances so far

2016-11-01 : Leipzig Documentary Filmfestival – German Competition, GERMANY
2016-11-12 : Duisburger Filmwoche, Duisburg, GERMANY
2016-12-10 : NOMINEE @ HumanRightsFilm-Award Germany, Nuremberg, GERMANY
2017-04-20 : Achtung Berlin – new berlin film award, Berlin, GERMANY
2017-06-15 : Wendland Shorts, Lüneburg, GERMANY
2017-08-14 : OpenAir Filmfestival Weiterstadt, GERMANY
2018-03-11 : Nonfiktionale – Festival des dokumentarischen Films, GERMANY

PARTNER
filmArche e.V. / Facebook
Ricam Hospiz / Facebook
Stiftung Menschenwürde und Arbeitswelt
AG Kurzfilm
Filmsortiment

PRESS
https://www.cargo-film.de/festival/dok-leipzig/dok-leipzig-2016/dok-leipzig-2016/
https://www.ein-augenblick-leben.de/2017/04/18/jeden-tag-reinigt-sie-15-zimmer-im-hospiz/
https://protokult.de/2016/fuenfzehn-zimmer/
https://www.german-documentaries.de/en_EN/films/fifteen-rooms.12502
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fünfzehn_Zimmer