PHANTOMS OF JULY

Press Screening:        06.08.2025, 19:00 | Teatro Kursaal
World Premiere:         07.08.2025, 16:45 | Palexpo (FEVI)
Screenings:                08.08.2025, 11:15 | L‘altra Sala & 09.08.2025, 21:30 | PalaCinema 1

Director Julian Radlmaier and actresses Clara Schwinning, Maral Keshavarz, Paula Schindler Marlene Hauser, Jérémie Galiana, and Leonard Scheicher are available for interviews.

PHANTOMS OF JULY (Sehnsucht in Sangerhausen) by writer-director Julian Radlmaier is world premiering at the Locarno Film Festival 2025 in the Main Competition Concorso Internazionale. Against the backdrop of a societal climate shifting to the right, the dramedy playfully brings together people who are often set against each other in the public debate. As light as a summer breeze, yet lingering like a ghost, PHANTOMS OF JULY is about the alchemy of encounter and the dream of another life.

For the main protagonists, precarious workers and migrants, longing for a different life becomes deeply political. Those busy with paying rent or trying to renew a residence permit seem to be denied the right to even ask about the meaning of everything. Set in the East German province, PHANTOMS OF JULY tells about loneliness, longing and class with both humor and tenderness.

SYNOPSIS
Ursula and Neda, an East German waitress with a broken heart and an Iranian YouTuber with a broken arm, both feel trapped and lonely in their precarious lives. One summer evening, Ursula falls for a mysterious musician from the city, while Neda is convinced that she recognized an old friend from Tehran in an equally enigmatic street sweeper. The winding paths of chance draw the two women together on an unexpected ghost hunt in the mountains… A romantic adventure film about an unlikely friendship and the longing for another life.

Starring recent Locarno Winner Clara Schwinning – Best Performance Cineasti del Presente for Katharina Huber’s “A Good Place” – the film also features Maral Keshavarz, Henriette Confurius, Paula Schindler, Ghazal Shojaei, Kyung Taek Lie, Buksori Lie, Marlene Hauser, Jérémie Galiana.

Born in Nuremberg in 1984, French-German director Julian Radlmaier studied at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) and worked as an assistant to New-German-Cinema-legend Werner Schroeter. He has also edited and translated several writings of French philosopher Jacques Rancière. Since his first short and medium length films, his work gained acclaim at major international festivals. His first feature “Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog” (2017) premiered in Rotterdam and won the German Film Critics Award for best debut of the year. His second feature “Bloodsuckers” (2021), premiered in the Berlinale Encounters competition and received the German Screenplay Award. “Phantoms of July” (2025) is his third feature. He lives in Berlin.

PHANTOMS OF JULY is produced by Blue Monticola Film (Producer: Kirill Krasovski) in co-production with WDR, (Commissioning Editor: Frank Tönsmann).
With the support of Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM), Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) and DFFF Deutscher Filmfernsehfonds.

World sales are handled by Bendita Film Sales.

The local release in Germany is scheduled for November 27, 2025 by Grandfilm.

 

90 min. / Germany 2025 / feature

Production Company:
Blue Monticola Film GmbH
info@blue-monticola-film.de
www.blue-monticola-film.de

World Sales:
Bendita Film Sales
sales@btafilms.com
www.btafilms.com

©/CREDITS:

Stills: ©