director: Kerstin Cmelka and Mario Mentrup idea, concept, screenplay: Kerstin Cmelka

Starring: Mario Mentrup, Marko Dyrlich, Kerstin Cmelka, Hanno Millesi, Marius Böhm

Cameo appearances: Claudia Basrawi, James Devereaux

Camera: Volker Sattel

Lighting: Mathias Becker

Editing: Matthias Semmler

Sound recording: Tom Schön

Sound mixing: Jochen Jezussek

Costume design: Kerstin Cmelka

Props: Manuel Gorkiewicz, Kerstin Cmelka Set photography, best man: Eric Bell

Music: Pasadena Project, Sally Tomato’s Animal Exercise Sponsored by the Federal Chancellery of Austria and the Province of Lower Austria.

Kerstin Cmelka (born 1974 in Mödling, Austria, lives in Berlin) studied fine arts and film at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main with Monika Schwitte, Thomas Bayrle and Simon Starling. Since 2000 she has presented her artistic and cinematic work in solo exhibitions at the Kunstverein Langenhagen and in group exhibitions at the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin or the conTeMporAry Art Gallery in Vancouver, among others. She has also participated in various film shows and festivals, including Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen; Viper, Basel; L’ Alternativa, Barcelona; Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival; Ann Arbor, Michigan and the New York Underground Film Festival.

Kerstin Cmelka works primarily with video, photography and performance. Her work is often based on popular models from theater, art and film, which she adapts and restages. In 2016, she made her first longer feature film titled “The Animals,” which is the focus of her exhibition in the Kunsthalle’s cabinet.

This film focuses on the development of the protagonist “Kerstin”, who, driven by the expectations of her coaches and playing partners, jumps through a wide variety of exercises and theoretical considerations, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, as if from one island to another, in order to be able to embody the main female character “Irena” in the film “Cat People” as an actress. In this respect, the question of the possibility of asserting female protagonists in a male-dominated film world is addressed, and furthermore the aspect of a possible double role play is negotiated.