All die Gartenzwerge

fiction | edit | 45 min| 2025

English Title: "The Weight of Gnomes"

Marie,15, and Luka’s,17, adolescence in a village set to be relocated for lignite mining is shaped not only by their own emotional turmoil but also by their role as witnesses to the late capitalist era. Caught in a constant struggle, they are in danger of going down
— both with and because of each other.

This is my graduation film in the field of editing in the Film & Sound programme
at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

Written & directed by Emma-Mathilda Lipphaus.

SYNOPSIS

Marie, 15, and Luka, 17, watch their hometown vanish – swallowed by an expanding lignite mine. A whole village erased for profit. But who is to profit? They’re losing the ground beneath their feet, both literally and figuratively.

Growing up in the late capitalist wreckage, they navigate a world shaped by climate crisis and social collapse. Marie wants to escape her family – especially her father, whose cruelty leaves her numb. School pressure suffocates her. She’s in love with her brother’s girlfriend. Luka longs for his mother, who’s always off working, just to keep them afloat. He understands, but the anger sticks. In his relationship, he’s torn between vulnerability and old-school ideals of masculinity.

They both face a future they don’t know how to shape. The smokestacks of the mine grow bigger each day: Symbols of a broken system that demands everything and gives nothing. Change is necessary, but it arrives like a storm: Too fast, too loud, too much. Fear and numbness become constants. Their bond is the only thing that holds – intense, unpredictable, sometimes tender, sometimes brutal. The mine, like a cancer, just keeps growing.