Private Project

Light of Embers (Work-In-Progress)

On their escape from a torrid city, Noah, Motte and Samuel have to find shelter in an abandoned cabin in the forest. They are exhausted from their journey and their water supplies are almost depleted. In the orange-red light of the approaching embers, the three of them have to make an existential decision: Do they try to save themselves or return to the city to tackle the root of the problem?

  • Johannes Weber
    Director
  • Johannes Weber
    Writer
  • Adnan Zecevic
    Writer
  • Sebastian Berghaus
    Producer
  • Sebastian Berghaus
    Cinematographer
  • Julius Haasch
    Editor
  • Franz Leyer
    Sound Designer
  • Mia Kaufhold
    Key Cast
    "Motte"
  • Ansgar Sauren
    Key Cast
    "Noah"
  • Lasse Claßen
    Key Cast
    "Samuel"
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Glut (Work-In-Progress)
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    21 minutes
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany
  • Language:
    German
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1,33:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund
Director Biography - Johannes Weber

Johannes co-founded the production company Framebar Films back in 2016, where he worked as a director, cinematographer, producer and editor on productions for well-known clients such as Campari, Universal Music, Sony Pictures, Giesswein and Jägermeister until the start of his studies.

His own short films have since been nominated at numerous film competitions, winning the jury prize at the 24h-to-take film competition in 2019 with "smolder“. His student projects include the experimental short "trembling", the 20-minute drama "time spent astray“, the mystery series pilot "doyoutrust.me“ and his graduation dystopian drama "Light of Embers".

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

„I‘m going to exhaust myself completely for another five years, after that it won‘t matter anyway“

I‘ve often heard sentences like this in conversations with several activists from the Fridays for Future movement. One of my best friends was also active as a regional press spokesperson for FFF for several years.
I was always immensely proud of him and how committed he was to the fight for climate justice. But when I realised what this work was doing to him and how, as time went on, a person I cared so deeply about kept destroying himself, I realised that there is a small group of people among the population who knowingly and actively choose to ignore their own mental and physical health each and every day - hoping to make their small contribution by preventing a crisis before it is too late.
There is a part of me that also wants to fight. But also a part that would rather run away and forget. And a part that has already no willpower left and would rather give up. The three characters of the film stem from exactly these parts.
Their positions clash within a seemingly hopeless end-time scenario. The light of embers does not represent each individual facet of the climate crisis, but its existential threat as a whole. The film is not about condemning individual perspectives. It rather intendes to raise the question of how viewers would act in this situation and to help create an understanding that we all have to find our very own way of dealing with this crisis.

I am convinced that this film offers me a way to make a contribution, and although I see it as my personal responsibility to include the existing nihilism in this context, I also want to give the end of the film a glimmer of hope. Because even if my and the younger generations in particular often feel powerless, we must not allow ourselves to be consumed by this feeling. Yet in the urge to do what feels right to us, we should not forget to look after each other and ourselves.