Cocoon

Fourteen-year-old Nora lives in the cool Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Her older sister, who practically raised her, enjoys her free time with a group of friends and takes Nora everywhere with her. They stroll around the city or hang out by the swimming pool, where they can hide from the scorching sun at least for a while. Nora is seen as a silent observer, who prefers to sit nearby and captures the world around her through Instagram videos. Even her other hobby, breeding caterpillars and butterflies, does not add to her popularity among peers. Her timid attitude begins to change the moment she meets a free-spirited and charismatic Roma. The daily routine is replaced by adventure, and thanks to the new girl Nora experiences great love for the first time, with all the joys and sorrows that are inseparable from it. Just as caterpillars slowly turn into butterflies with colorful wings, Nora becomes a young woman. And all thanks to a few sunny months in a hot city.

Leonie Krippendorff

Leonie Krippendorff is a German screenwriter and director. In 2016, she debuted with Looping, a feature film that maps the lives of three women at a psychiatric clinic. In the same year, she cooperated as a screenwriter on an adaptation of Sonia Rossi’s eponymous memoir, Fucking Berlin. Her second auteur film, Cocoon, offers a coming-of-age story of a girl who experiences her first love for a woman in Berlin.