Hercules Falling awarded at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival !
Christian Bonke’s debut feature film premieres and is awarded at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Published
“Hercules Falling” by Christian Bonke won the Best Feature Film Award and the International Critics’ Prize at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Christian Bonke took part in LIM | Less is More in 2023 to develop his first fiction feature film, Hercules Falling, a psychological drama.
The film was shot during the summer of 2024 and stars Dar Salim.
The film tells the story of Josef, who returns from war broken and unable to resume his former life with his wife and son. After a nervous breakdown, he is forced to go to a rehabilitation center for veterans in order to heal and accept his new limitations. The center is located on a small island at the edge of Denmark. Josef then embarks on a new inner journey.
Adapting is not easy, but little by little he opens up to the other residents and to the world around him. Time passes, and when his family visits him, the desire to return to his old life is rekindled. When he goes home for his son’s birthday, he is immediately confronted with the challenges of civilian life. His old demons resurface, and his aggression erupts in public.
Josef then realizes that he will never be able to live out his idyll and must rethink his plans for the future. He discovers that, unlike in civilian life, post-traumatic stress is not a problem on the battlefield. Unable to find his place anywhere else, Josef runs away and returns to take part in a war he never truly managed to leave.
