Kafkas Der Bau

With his film adaptation, Jochen Alexander Freydank is breaking new ground in the reception of Kafka: the first adaptation of the unfinished story The Burrow takes up essential narrative strategies of the author and transfers the plot of the text to the big city of the 21st century.

Unlike in Kafka's story, which is one of his last and is considered the culmination of his late work, the main character is not a mole-like animal, but a human being. Franz, an office worker, lives with his wife and children in a fortress-like dwelling, which corresponds to the badger or mole building in the literary original. Feeling increasingly threatened, Franz begins to secure the flat against imaginary enemies. When he loses his job and family and the flat and the entire city finally fall into ruin, the film reveals its dystopian vision: In a post-apocalyptic world, Franz lives as a wise master builder who states - as in the narrative: "But everything remained unchanged."