Bliss

Alternating between waiting in the break room, having sex and lining up for the next john: Maria, a self-confident Italian in her mid-twenties, is new to the Berlin brothel where Sascha has been working for a long time. With her tattoos, her piercings and her penchant for writing poetry in a notebook during breaks, she is quite different from the others. The two women are immediately attracted to each other. Maria splashes out on a nice flat overlooking Alexanderplatz and regularly assures her father on the phone that she is doing well and earning a lot of money. For Sascha, the regional train connects her not only with her old life in provincial Brandenburg but also with her 11-year-old son who lives with his father. When she takes Maria to a village festival and introduces her as her new girlfriend, Sascha brings with her the assertive, non-conformist ways of the city. For the first time she is trying to be true to who she really is.

Filmed with precision and a lightness of touch, Henrika Krull’s second feature tells a love story set in a place where the female body is a commodity and depicts two charismatic sex workers who manage to charm the viewer just as much as everyone around them.

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