Keja Ho Kramer

BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS forms a complement this film by crafting an intimate portrait of Erika Kramer: time together in the lush, overgrown garden of the stone house on the Seine, casual conversations between games of Scrabble, tarot card readings, acoustic resonances and drawings. An expansive cosmos unfolds between daughter and mother: from memories of Keja Ho’s birth in 1974 to a playful initiation into the irrefutability of death. (Volker Pantenburg)

The film concerns a group of disparate types who support themselves by running guns to the Arabs. On the surface, it would seem that these characters are bad guys. In fact, the guns are to be used by a resistance group who hope to continue shipping oil to the West, despite the despotic curbs imposed upon fuel shipments by their leaders.

I saw this happen: Raye left home. Why? To see what was waiting for her out there. Europe! It didn't matter where she went, the Mediterranean coast, Strasbourg, Zurich, Berlin, she's young. Then her father, Abel, left. Perhaps he wanted something else to happen to him. Things began to happen on the ship, but Odessa is where it really began. So Nellie was left there alone. Maybe she couldn't have said it, but that's what she needed. I mean, to be alone with herself. That's why she sent Raye and Abel away. So without moving, with everything around her moving very fast and also in the microscope which is her work, Nellie had her own trip to make. As for this kind of travelling, that's what each of us did. I know, I was there.

'The Sun and the Moon, a film fairy tale, is about two women’s terrifying encounter with ‘Otherness’ in the form of a man, abject and monstrous, and for them to either to witness, accept or partake in his annihilation. All are caught in their own isolation and are fearful of the menace that has to be met. The film, as a personal interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, enciphers concerns, beliefs and desires in seductive images that are themselves a form of camouflage, making it possible to utter harsh truths.'