Sygfried

We meet Sygfried in flight, caught between an urge to escape and something he cannot yet face. Awakening in a strange, surreal landscape inhabited by enigmatic presences, his journey gradually turns inward, as the world around him begins to unsettle what he thought he could leave behind. His story unfolds through a ballad that echoes the old German myth from which he takes his name. Meanwhile, Kriemhild sets out in search of him, only to begin questioning how much of her own path has been shaped by following another.

Loosely reimagining the German myth of the “Nibelungenlied”, Sygfried places its characters in new roles and reconsiders the ideas of heroism, masculinity, femininity and devotion embedded in the myth. Where there was once rivalry, the film allows for tenderness, while Kriemhild is given an agency beyond love, loss and revenge. Between folklore and a contemporary coming-of-age story, Sygfried imagines a different fate for characters whose story has been told for centuries.

Directed by Betty Maggie Ballhorn and Soleiman Bafaiz (Germany)