Laurin

A small German harbor town around 1900: The focus is on nine-year-old Laurin, who lives with her mother Flora, her father Arne, a sailor, and her eccentric grandmother Olga in a remote house in the forest. When her mother dies one night under mysterious circumstances, Laurin (Dóra Szinetár) is haunted by eerie visions and dreams. Two years later, when her father goes to sea again, Laurin is left alone with her grandmother. During this time, Van Rees (Károly Eperjes), the priest's son, returns from military service. Laurin feels attracted to Van Rees, but also senses a dark aura around him. Laurin begins to investigate the dark secrets of the village and discovers a gruesome truth about a series of boys who have disappeared without trace. Robert Sigl made his first and only feature film at the age of 25, shortly after graduating from the University of Film and Television in Munich. He succeeded in creating a dark horror tale with gothic imagery, an eerie atmosphere and psychological horror that is less of an entertainment movie than an associative space of possibility. Today, “Laurin” is considered a cult classic and at the same time a gem of German genre cinema that was far ahead of its time. "With 'Laurin', Robert Sigl has succeeded in making a wonderful, unique film that - once again - found no imitators in Germany, even though it was awarded the Bavarian Film Prize. Unfortunately, Sigl himself did not conquer the big screen after that either, but worked mainly for television. A shame, because Laurin clearly shows what he is capable of. Even 30 years after it was made, the film has lost none of its primal beauty, still standing like the famous rock in the surf, rugged and barren, windswept but upright. A natural wonder." (Oliver Nöding, on: critic.de)