Undine

Undine

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Bear for Best Actress (Paula Beer) at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, Undine is a haunting and lyrical modern reimagining of a European myth. Directed by acclaimed German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Transit, Phoenix), the film weaves romance, mystery, and folklore into a mesmerizing meditation on love, loss, and destiny.

Undine (Paula Beer) is a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development—a woman seemingly grounded in the rational world. But when her lover leaves her, an ancient legend begins to seep into her reality: the myth of a water spirit betrayed by a mortal man. As she meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski), a gentle industrial diver, their passionate relationship unfolds with both tenderness and inevitability, blurring the line between human longing and mythical fate.

Petzold’s direction is intimate and restrained, transforming myth into metaphor. Through luminous cinematography and evocative sound design, Undine reflects on the ways we rebuild our lives and cities atop the ruins of the past. Beer’s magnetic performance—simultaneously fierce and fragile—anchors the film’s emotional and supernatural tension.

Undine is a story of reinvention and eternal recurrence, where love is both a promise and a curse. It’s a hypnotic blend of realism and fantasy that lingers like a half-remembered dream, reminding us that the past, like water, is never truly still.

Screening With:

Doma

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11 mins
Canada, 2021
Dir. Beth Warrian
Language: English

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