Felix Bartke

In their feature-length debut, Gossing/Sieckmann dive into the merfolk subculture with performance artist and siren Una. Genre elements, fiction and documentary, self-care, political activism and self-chosen identities blend into one another.

Jan receives the group patch at the campfire, Herkules brews up some tea in the workshop and Sidney gets a mohawk haircut done by his father. The film shows fragments from an Oberhausen subculture in which symbols and practices of the outlaw motorbiker scene are transferred to cycling.

Hercules travels by bicycle from Krefeld on the Lower Rhine to Olympus, the throne of ancient deities. The Hercules myth, as a primal myth of male power, is questioned through biographical reflections and the staging of mythological echoes. The dramaturgical structure of the hero's journey disintegrates in a multi-material perspective into questions about male identity, ideals and remorse.

The dream of living like the cowboy in a movie can become a reality in fiction, until the smoke of a cigarette recalls the ghosts of days gone by.