Rudolf Thome’s idiosyncratic oeuvre was created with a continuity rare in German cinema – he has directed 28 feature-length films over more than four decades since 1968. The writing of the script for film no. 29 and the parallel efforts to secure financing form the thread that runs through this cinematic portrait, which consists wholly of conversations and observations around Thome’s home, a converted farm in Brandenburg. The filmmaker is nothing if not forthcoming, and the viewer has the opportunity to experience him in various other roles: as a gardener, a father, a cyclist, and a performer of his own persona. A fountain pen is as much a part of Thome’s daily life as keeping an online diary and filming sunsets. He’s happy when he spots a redstart, gets a positive review, or when someone visits his website. His films are discussed in a pleasingly non-systematic way: a lighting mistake in Supergirl, his links to Marquard Bohm, the actors and actresses who brush their teeth in his films. The sight of prints of his oeuvre lying in piles of rusted canisters around his barn instead of in an archive forms one of the sadder moments in a film brimming with warmth, humour, and wit. berlinale 2016