LAUF

The idea underneath the concept of LAUF is accountability and Guilt, especially the lack of it in domestic abuse cases. As a young boy, domestic abuse was something that I experienced quite a bit. I would remember waking up late at night to my father and his girlfriend, at the time, screaming at each other. These screams would usually end with my dad’s girlfriend crying as my father would continuously hit her. This is something that would happen so often it became almost common.

My father was complicated but I believed he had good qualities, some that I even took from him. When he passed on, I always wondered what was going through his mind in the moments before his death. If he ever looked back at how he treated the woman he once loved and if he ever wanted to go back and change that. I thought the same about other men who abused their partners, I wondered if they ever felt guilty as they laid on their deathbed about to take their last breath. This initially became the inspiration for LAUF.

I see this film as a question to domestic abusers. When you think about what you have done to the people that loved you, how will that make you feel before you perish forever? Will you face up to what you have done or continue fighting your own conscience because you still fail to take accountability?

When I got a chance to go to Germany I still felt like I wanted to tell this story. It became a bit complicated when I decided to change all of the characters and make them German. I was scared it might not have the same impact, especially how relevant the topic is in my country at the moment. However, I also knew that if I wanted to capture the best out of my actors I had to make them perform in their native language. Shooting in a foreign country during Covid did not make things easier either. However, with the biggest help from my crew I was able to achieve what, at a time, I thought was impossible. I was able to write and direct a film in a language I did not understand, in a country I was in for the first time and during the worst times to probably ever shoot a movie.