FRIDAY 21 NOV – H 21:00 – ROOM 3

WHITE SNAIL
AUSTRIA, GERMANY – 2025 – color – 115’

Direction: Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter
Screenplay: Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter
Cinematography: Mikhail Khursevich
Editing: Stephan Bechinger
Production design: Kristine Vitola
Music: John Gürtler, Jan Miserre
Costumes: Lena Oger
Cast: Marya Imbro (Masha), Mikhail Senkov (Misha), Olga Reptuh (Masha’s mother), Andrei Sauchanka (Masha’s father), Anzhelika Prakopenia, Roman Kiselev, Katrusya Yasnovskaya, Tako Chan, Anastasia Satskevich, Erika Amiri (models), Nina Drako (model school director), Inna Ivanova (exorcist), Iryna Smirnova (psychologist), Evgeny Sheremet (doctor), Dmitri Muravijovs (Misha’s colleague)
Producers: Lixi Frank, David Bohun, Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter in co-production with Heino Deckert, Tina Börner
Production: Panama Film (At), Raumzeitfilm (At) in co-production with Ma.ja.de Fiction (De)
World Sales: Intramovies

Synopsis
A Belarusian model dreaming of a career in China finds herself unexpectedly drawn to a reclusive night-shift worker at a morgue. Their connection begins with a chance encounter: again and again, Masha is drawn to the morgue. Under false pretenses, she finally gets inside. But it’s not the morgue itself – it’s the moment the mysterious Misha steps into her life that turns everything upside down. Between two seemingly different outsiders, a maelstrom of mutual attraction and shy desire evolves. Carried away by summer recklessness, they drift through the twilight of Minsk’s summer nights. At Misha’s place, a new world is revealed to her: countless opulent oil paintings show the dead from the morgue – rendered with sensuality and a tender sense of life. To their surprise, Masha is drawn to his dark, beautiful world, while he finds in her someone who truly sees him and understands his art.

the directors: ELSA KREMSER, LEVIN PETER
Elsa Kremser (1985 Wolfsberg/Austria) and Levin Peter (1985 Jena/Germany) are a directing-duo and the founders of the Vienna based production company Raumzeitfilm. After they started their collaboration during their film studies in 2009, their first documentary Space Dogs premiered in 2019 in Locarno and was shown at more than 70 festivals worldwide. This was followed by Dreaming Dogs, a feature-length experimental film that received significant international attention by curators and festivals. They were awarded with the Carinthian Cultural Award for Film, the Nipkow fellowship, the Gerd Ruge fellowship and the ExtraValue Artist Residency New York. White Snail is their first fiction feature.

director’s statement
“These are two rich, contrasting worlds – both centered on the body and its representation, yet expressed in profoundly different ways – which we deliberately bring into collision within a fictional framework. Together, these characters dream of breaking free, yet their hopes are restrained by fear and self-shame – shame for being unseen as an artist, shame from battling depression, shame that keeps them from opening up to others for fear of humiliation. At the heart of the story lies a fundamental conflict: the choice between opening oneself up to another, risking vulnerability, or withdrawing into isolation and accepting loneliness and stagnation. On top of this, Masha faces a pressing decision: whether to stay in Belarus and give her relationship with Misha a chance, or to leave everything behind in pursuit of a new life as a model in China. Through
White Snail , we seek to awaken a sense of connection, helping us feel less alone in our struggles while rousing the courage not to hide our flaws and the willingness to show vulnerability. Our work seeks to reveal what often remains unseen – a perspective free from nostalgia and Eastern European stereotypes. We tell stories from a country whose stories rarely reach beyond its borders.”

filmography
2019 Space Dogs (doc.)
2024 Dreaming Dogs (experimental)
2025 White Snail

awards and festivals
2017 Berlinale: Kompagnon-Fellowship as Best Screenplay
2025 Locarno IFF – Competition: Special Jury Prize, Pardo for Best Performance to Marya Imbro, Mikhail Senkov
2025 Sarajevo IFF – Competition: Arthouse Cinema Award by the CICAE Jury