They lived happily ever after and died together one day’, that’s how all the love stories I used to listen to as a child end (* Russian variant). But what’s the ending of these ‘love stories’ in reality? Romanticization of love’s notion and its dispute with harsh reality are the baseline for the film that takes an in-depth look at how and what extent the cultural image of love designates our consciousness. In this visual manifesto I aim to recreate an idealized image of an imperfect relationship, using the romantic aesthetic. Turning to my personal experience I consider the romantic relationship of two people based on the example of my parents. When I was little, they loved each other, as a teenager, they broke up, now that I’m an adult, they’re together again, with the experience of what they’ve been through before. The film analyses almost invisible difference between myths and reality in our heads and combines for this documentary footage with hyperbolic staged romantic scenes.

BY  Pola Rader (RU)


Pola Rader is motion artist and director with Russian roots, who now resides in Germany. 2004-2009 she obtained a teaching degree for English and French philology at the Arctic University in Murmansk, Russia. Then she moved to Germany, where in 2014 she completed her bachelor degree in film and theatre studies from the Free University of Berlin. In 2020 Rader graduated from the MA Film course at University of the Fine Arts Hamburg with the final film “Habitat”, an experimental documentary. Rader is on the board of the association "Filmkultur Schleswig-Holstein eV." and curator of the Short Film Festival "Lokale Helden" in Kiel, Germany. Pola is the founder of the film- and photostudio for children "Kleinformat".