Private Project

Europe 5 Days

The fifteen year old Anatolian peasant girl, Ayla, leaves a life without a future and begins a journey to Europe on foot and without a passport. On the way she meets peoples who have there own differing views on Europe. From these meetings springs a wonderful, magical kaleidoscope that illuminates in a series of impressive tableaux in the current situation of underage refugees. The film was made over the course of seven weeks in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany.

  • Friedl Wolffhardt
    Director
  • Orsa Repp
    Director
  • Friedl Wolffhardt
    Writer
  • Orsa Repp
    Writer
  • Friedl Wolffhardt
    Producer
  • Orsa Repp
    Producer
  • Jana Vijayakumaran
    Key Cast
  • Stefan Cassani
    Key Cast
  • Vanya Ineva
    Key Cast
  • Gesa Köhler
    Key Cast
  • Henry Dahlke
    Key Cast
  • Georg Koeniger
    Key Cast
  • Christian Doll
    Music
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Europe 5 Days
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 32 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    June 1, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    24,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, Turkey
  • Language:
    Bulgarian, English, German, Turkish
  • Shooting Format:
    CANON EOS 60D Full-HD / DCP
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85.1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 34th Oulu International Children's and Youth Film Festival's Youth Film Competition
    Oulu, Finland, Europe
    November 17, 2015
  • 34th Oulu International Children's and Youth Film Festival's Youth Film Competition
    Oulu, Finland, Europe
    November 18, 2015
  • 34th Oulu International Children's and Youth Film Festival's Youth Film Competition
    Oulu, Finland, Europe
    November 19, 2015
  • 26. Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
    Germany / Schwerin
    May 5, 2016
    Germany Premiere
  • 26. Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
    Germany / Schwerin
    Germany
    May 6, 2016
    Germany Premiere
Director Biography - Friedl Wolffhardt, Orsa Repp

Friedl Wolffhardt studied Psychology at the L.M.U and then direction and film authorship at the Filmhochschule München from 2000 to 2006. Orsa Repp is an actress, choreographer and director and realized innumerable projects with among other handicapped and disadvantaged people. For both of them Europe 5 Days is the first full length feature film.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

We wanted to tell our film primarily in images, we wanted to give room for emotions and interpretations, ask questions rather than give answers. We wanted to slow down the high speed of the usual teen series.

The question is: What is a good life? People define this indeed different. Enough food, political security, but little chance of another life can definitely give the strong desire to find a different world. Most young people want to differ from what their parents and grandparents lived, to find their own identity, especially in adolescence. And people always dreamed, there could be a better world somewhere far away!

We wanted to make a low-budget-film that does not divide the world into good and evil, but take a more observing gaze, without judging what is right or wrong. Each character looks at the story from his own perspective and of course comes to different judgments.

We wanted to make a movie about the very long way of a fifteen-year-old girl from southern Turkey to West Europe. On foot, by ferry, by bus and train crossing the Bosphorus and along the Black Sea to the Danube, Bulgaria, then to Romania we finally reached Germany. Using a simple DSLR photo camera.

The results are stunning images that are documentary, but never lose their poetic character.

What we hope the movie tells to the teenagers: Be true to yourself and believe in your dreams, even if they seem out of reach! Be brave and nosy!