A London underground fairy tale.

Tical in the Thunderground

"Tical in the Thunderground" transforms documentary footage of the London Tube to a fairytale novel of a kingdom set in the future. Thus, a documentary fairy tale is created.

The little girl Tical tells us of the Kingdom Thunderground, a land that has burrowed itself deep into the earth. The king's satiety and boredom lead him to steal his subjects time, helped in this by both his devious state-officers and the cruel monsters of the deep. But those subjects begin to revolt…

director: Bert Knieper
genre: documentary fairytale
duration: 22 min.
format: 35 mm

original title Tical und das Donnergrund
year 1998
picture format 35 mm | 636 m | 1:1,37 | color
voices Inga Schröder | Carola Meyer | Jürgen Elbers | and others
writer & director Bert Knieper
photography Bert Knieper
editing Bert Knieper
music Johannes Becker | Peter Roloff | Ingo Wolf
producer Peter Roloff
production maxim film

"Tical in the Thunderground" is a filmic novel that closes back on itself. In the same way as we will find at the end that the girl Tical has herself become part of the fairytale – or more like, that the fairytale has become reality – the footage of underground-traffic folds more and more into the fantastic story by the breaking especially of its time-continuity. Slowmotion, running-backwards and total freezes, combined with extremely long fades, thus create the kingdom Thunderground, ruled by the thunderbirds, the tubes themselves.

Premiere
1998 Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival, Canada

Festivals
1998 International Film Festival Figueira da Foz, Portugal – Prémio Descoberta, Instituto Português da Juventade
1998 International Film Festival Leeds, England
1998 Murphy's International Film Fest Cork, Ireland
1998 Kasseler Film- und Videotage, Germany
1999 Panoramique de Curtmetratge Sueca-Valencia, Spain
1999 Cinerail International Railway Film Festival, France
1999 Intern. Short Film Fest Teheran, Iran
2000 European Forum of Digital Films, Saint Denis, France

Please contact us.

maxim film
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10115 Berlin
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Phone: +49 (30) 30 87 24 78
Fax: +49 (30) 30 87 24 79

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