Barbara Heynen

The filmmaker Lenz has left his native Berlin for the Vosges to research the story behind Georg Büchner's novel fragment Lenz. But he soon trades the Alsatian landscape for higher altitudes and more emotional territory: a reunion with his estranged wife Natalie and their son Noah in the Swiss Alps. Like his literary counterpart, the modern-day Lenz follows the Romantic motto: Genius writes its own rules. Against a background of kitsch global tourism - provided by the authentic Zermatt locations - Thomas Imbach's Lenz portrays an unconventional family and a man struggling between euphoria and desperation.

The film is set in a modern day 'Berlin Republic' liberated from all irrelevancies. It's about artistic production, the creative industries and above all film and cinema - a political manifesto in feature film format. It centres on Asta, tough, hardened by theory and immaculately styled right down to the emblems on her leather jacket, with current art scene jargon flowing elegantly from her lips.