Getting ready for Berlinale 2025: Luisa Gaffron photographed by Sarah Willmeroth

vor 2 days

What is normal? And why do we even ask ourselves this question?

Actress Luisa-Céline Gaffron explores this very question in her latest film, How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World. She plays 26-year-old Pia, who, after leaving a psychiatric hospital, moves back in with her parents – only to discover that she is not the only one whose life has fallen apart in a world that is constantly changing. For Pia, reality feels as unsteady as she does. Little by little, she begins to transform – into a giant monster that threatens the world… or perhaps into a heroine destined to save it?

A complex female role, made for the Berlin-based actress – not least because she is deeply engaged in the issues of our time. In fact, Luisa is almost as well known for her political activism as she is for her film roles. Tirelessly, she uses social media, demonstrations, and interviews to advocate for a free, open, and tolerant society.

Global crises colliding with personal struggles, and the search for meaning in a world spiraling out of control – a theme many will find deeply relatable.

Yet, despite the film’s intense storyline, its premiere was a cheerful affair. With Fräulein, Luisa shares her behind-the-scenes impressions, showing how she embraced the moment. For the red carpet, she wore a dress by the Berlin-based label Haderlump and was photographed at her home by Sarah Willmeroth.

Sarah Willmeroth

I felt drawn to this dress from the moment I saw it. Then I learned it’s made from bits of silk from parachutes because Haderlump’s collection is inspired by the first woman ever flying across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart, who went on to become a feminist activist. So I’m glad I was allowed to wear it to the Berlinale opening, an opening into “the great independent borderless state of cinema” as Tilda Swinton called it in her speech that felt like home.

For me this evening, this dress, all our attempts during Berlinale to move an audience with all the sweat and blood we pour into our movies, is an example that the constant, ongoing attempt to inspire and to find ways to be consciously political in our own ways, in our garments, in our words, in our analoge actions, in our movies, in our art is alive.

In these wild, uncertain and scary times, where facist are gaining more power and are trying to divide us, to keep us busy, to keep us apart, to keep us in fear, it seems like we do need to cherish and train and celebrate and champion the human ability of imagination and empathy as much as we can.

Thinking of all the Amelia Earharts now and then.

(Btw she disappeared during a plane crash but there’s this conspiracy theory that she’s still alive and I think if she is out there somewhere she’s probably one of the badass pilots in the Seawatch planes.)

Getting ready for Berlinale 2025: Luisa Gaffron photographed by Sarah Willmeroth

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