An affluent city is covered in snow, all seems perfect – on the surface. Divorcé Rolf is doing his best to rebuild his relationship with his daughter. Pregnant Lena appears to be living a faultless family life with her husband and son. Social worker Judith has a tough job and escapes it through her fantasies, whilst widowed Maria has finally built up the courage to invite her male acquaintance to a romantic dinner.

In the course of one day, all of them will cross paths with the Bulgarian Mia, who works in the red-light trade and their seemingly perfect lives will never be the same…

Direction: Petra Volpe

Script: Petra Volpe

Production: Lukas Hobi, Reto Schaerli,

Cinematography: Judith Kaufmann

Editing: Hansjörg Weissbrich

Production Design: Su Erdt

Costume Design: Linda Harper

Sound: Noemi Hampel

Original Score: Sascha Ring

Cast: Marisa Paredes, Luna Zimić Mijović, André Jung, Ursina Lardi, Bettina Stucky, Devid Striesow, Stefan Kurt

Original Title: TRAUMLAND

Original Languages: Bulgarian, German, Spanish, Swiss German

Subtitles: English

Film Production Countries: Switzerland, Germany

Website: www.traumland.xxx

Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/traumlandfilm?fref=ts

Statement of the Director/s:
What drew you to this story - is it based on someone you know?

I lived in the red light district of Zürich and was always wondering about that parallel world of the sex business and ‘normal life’ around me. The women on the street touched me, I wondered about their lives. As a woman - unless working as a prostitute, you are excluded from this world and that alone somehow outraged me but also drew me to it.

When I was a student I worked as a telephone sex operator for a while. I needed money but I was also curious to know what was behind those telephone sex ads. I had the obvious conversations but I also talked a lot to the customers about their relationships, their sexual desires, fantasies - and it left a lasting impression on me.

How would you describe the film?

DREAMLAND is about how we treat the most vulnerable in our world and ultimately I believe this is linked to how we deal with our relationships. The people who meet Mia are not bad, they are just unable to deal with their own pain and I think that is very damaging. The more I came to know about the sex-business, the more it led me to questions about relationships in general, how we deal with issues of rejection, loneliness, betrayal, vulnerability, pain and yearning for intimacy and closeness.

How did you approach the subject?

My research for DREAMLAND took over a year and I got to talk to a lot of people involved in the red light world. I was in brothels, clubs and I spent time with the police etc. When I talked to Johns I was astonished how much they were looking for something "real". ‘Real desire, real contact, real conversations’.

But I was most deeply moved by my encounters with the often very young girls from Eastern Europe who come to Switzerland on a three month visa to work as street prostitutes. I met most of them through FIZ, Fachstelle Frauenhandel und Frauenmigration, an NGO that help women who have problems or who want to stop working as prostitutes. The FIZ does a tremendous work and they helped me a lot in my research.

When I asked these young woman what would be important for them in such a movie they all said: they would like to be seen as human beings. This always stayed with me in the long process of developing the screenplay.

Biography of the Director/s:
Berlin based Swiss/Italian director/writer Petra Volpe studied film at the Filmacademy "Konrad Wolf" in Potsdam-Babelsberg. During her studies she wrote and directed several short films. After she got her Masters Degree in 2003 she proceeded to work as a free-lance writer and director.

Her short films Der Kuss (2000) and Crevetten (2001) won awards for Best Student Film or Best Film at various festivals in Switzerland and abroad. Crevetten won Volpe the Action Light Award at the International Film Festival in Locarno, Switzerland. Her TV movies Schönes Wochenende (2006) and Frühling im Herbst (2009) scored high ratings on Swiss Television SF and were sold to broadcasters in Germany and other countries.

Frühling im Herbst, Volpe's most recent comedy, won the Swissperform Award for Best Actress. At the Baden-Baden TV Film Festival 2010 the film won the Grand Prize for Best German-Speaking TV Film as well as the award of the students of the film academy Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

Petra Volpe's Cinema debut Traumland was nominated for 4 Swiss Film Awards 2014: Best Fiction Film, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (2 Nominations). Ursina Lardi won the Price for the best actress. Judith Kaufmann (Director of Photography) and Hansjörg Weissbrich (Editor) were nominated for the German Camera Award 2014. Hansjörg Weissbrich won in the category Feature Film.

World Sales:
Picture Tree International GmbH
Andreas Rothbauer
Zur Börse 12
Berlin, 10247, Germany
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +49 (151) 54458921
Website: http://www.picturetree-international.com/

Press:
SWISS FILMS
Rona Grünenfelder
Neugasse 6
Zürich, 8031, Switzerland
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: 0041 43 211 40 56
Website: http://www.swissfilms.ch/