Liebhaberinnen I Women as Lovers

A sleeping bag on the ground in front of the fitness studio lockers, a coaching seminar and the morning shift briefing (to practise the salesperson smile): these are the tough situations Brigitte (Johanna Wokalek) finds herself in. She is the protagonist of this Elfriede Jelinek adaptation, in which debut filmmaker Koxi takes stock of the successful early novel by the later Nobel Prize winner by catapulting it from the 1970s into contemporary late capitalism. Female market value today? While scrolling, middle-aged trade fair hostess Brigitte comes across schoolgirl Paula (Hannah Schiller), who is doing all she can to get Internet fame. While one seems full of youthful ambitions and aspirations, the other starts comparing herself to her, increasingly obsessively. Brigitte must change her life to reach her goals with proper calculation – but are they really hers? Paula goes to drastic measures to break out of her dreary home, but there’s no escape. Liebhaberinnen is a dark tragicomedy about the impossibility of female fulfilment and the less empowering brand of mother-daughter relationships. ‘Use the patriarchy’ cum self-marketing optimisation. All in all, little has changed.