Alle Wollen Geliebt Werden
Alle Wollen Geliebt Werden is the first feature film for writer and director Katharina Woll. Written together with Florian Plumeyer it won Best Screenplay at the 2022 Munich Film Festival.
Alle Wollen Geliebt Werden (Everybody Wants To Be Loved) centres around Ina, a woman, mother, daughter, partner and psychotherapist, who puts herself under constant pressure to please everyone around her. Yet one hot summer day, Ina notices she isn’t feeling well, but as usual, puts the demands of her family and patients first and struggles to find time to speak to her doctor about what’s wrong.
As Ina runs around trying to organise the last of her mother’s 70th birthday party, she argues with her teenage daughter who wants to move in with her father. She argues with her ex-partner about him only showing up for the fun parenting moments. When her current partner tries to convince her to move to Finland with him, Ina slowly starts to unravel.
Then, at the birthday party, things come to a head when Ina refuses to grant her mother’s wish to sing for her. What follows is a series situations that challenge Ina’s view of her relationships with those important to her. She feels she isn’t really seen or heard and that perhaps this isn’t sustainable nor desirable for her. On top of that, she still hasn’t spoken to her doctor.
Alle Wollen Geliebt Werden gives us an insight into the life of a woman who struggles to put herself first and what happens when she finally admits to herself that this no longer works for her. It looks at relationships where one person takes the other for granted and never really truly considers them, until it’s (nearly) too late. Including the relationship one has with oneself.
I asked Katharina why she chose to tell this particular story to which she answered:
“Your question is a bit hard to answer as stories and characters develop also a life of their own. We started with a story about a mother- daughter relationship and then slowly Ina became who she is now. Generally, I think that there aren’t not too many women protagonists of Inas age. That’s also why we decided to give her that age and of course its interesting to talk about 3 generations of women: why are they who they are - they are definitely also a product of their upbringing and their time. And then the subject of speaking up for oneself is a topic many women have to struggle with.”
She continued to tell me that even though she herself is a rather dominant character, it also resonates with herself.
The film celebrates its theatrical release in Germany on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2023.
