For Elise
- Runtime
- 16 min
- Year
- 2025
- Country
- Germany
- Language
- German
- Type / Genre
- Short
- Director
- Oliver Schwarz
- Writer
- René Tröltzsch, Oliver Schwarz
- Producer
- Matthias Karstädt, Christian Zebe, Oliver Schwarz
- Key Cast
- Friederike Serr, Mario Kremp, Aurelia Hönig, Christian Zebe
"Für Elise” is a short film about love, loss, pain, and hope. The film is based on a text by the poet René Tröltzsch, whom I involved early in the creative process. I wanted to find a cinematic language that feels like a fairytale-like children’s rhyme—gentle and romantic—while the story itself is told with uncompromising realism. For me, “Für Elise” is a very personal exploration of the fears of loss that have accompanied me since the birth of my children, and of the question of whether such pain can ever truly be processed. The story is deliberately set in a time when it was especially difficult for women to live independently and autonomously—particularly after such a tragic blow of fate. I drew inspiration from old fairy tales, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and the films of Guillermo del Toro. Despite the heaviness of the subject, I didn’t want to tell a purely tragic story, but one that ultimately allows for hope. With “Für Elise,” I attempted to reinterpret the classic beginning of a horror film—“the happy family moves into the haunted house”—as a cathartic and conciliatory moment at the end of the story. Visually and stylistically, the film relies on a high-contrast visual language, a calm, observant camera, and the use of handcrafted practical effects. This reduction in imagery and movement is meant to create space for the inner emptiness and emotional depth of the protagonist.
