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STATEMENTS & PRESS
“I’ve seen many films about youth but none of them hits the nail on the head like yours does.”
CHRISTIAN BERGER (Cinematographer, Oscar Nominee „The White Ribbon“)
“In quite a while no film has upset me as much as this one.”
HUBERT CANAVAL (Director, Editor)
“A good movie has to touch or surprise or open up new vistas: FOREVER NOT ALONE accomplishes it all – without difficulty! You can never see enough of the young protagonists and of what’s moving them and what they’re wishing for. A truly tender, strong and tight film about friendship, faith, love, fears, affection and desires. A film that manages in a brilliant vain to transport in equal measure the irrepressible curiosity as well as the exhaustion of what the future will provide. The credits aren’t over yet and you’re already longing for the sequel… Monja Art and Caroline Bobek are hopefully working at it to fulfill this audience’s desire.”
MARIJANA STOISITS (Director of the Vienna Film Commission)
“Finally no teeny feel bad movie but a film that captures youth in it’s easiness. The perfect summer movie.”
SYLVIA FASSL-VOGLER (Director of the Film and Culture Department Vienna)
“My 14 year old daughter said: ‘From all of the 1000 films you always show to me, this one is the one I identified with the most.’”
WILBIRG BRAININ-DONNENBERG (Director of the Script Forum Vienna)
“I've never seen a film from that perspective anywhere else before.”
AUDIENCE
“Wow, that's a really stunning movie. Good work. It feels very cinematic, just how impossibly natural everyone is in it.”
AUDIENCE
"This documentary feels like there was no camera. That’s the highest art in documenting that you let your protagonists think there was no technical apparat breaking into their privacy."
HANNS-GEORG RODEK (Die Welt, 10/2013)
"Walking into this documentary about a group of immature, teenage girls, I can honestly say I had very low expectations, and, if I’m being completely honest, I only reviewed this film because I lost a coin toss. Now, that being said, I was completely blown away by Forever Not Alone. Art and Bobek focus far more on the friendships and relationships of the six main girls in the documentary than on anything stereotypical or cliché that one might usually associate with the age range, creating a brilliant sense of emotion and connection throughout the film. Fairly early on in Forever Not Alone, the group learns that one of the girls will be moving away soon with her mother, and they’re slowly forced to come to terms with this fact as the film progresses. Art and Bobek do a fine job of peeling past the typical and exposing the harshness and the utter bliss that friendship can simultaneously provide."
(JOHN FORD, Slug Magazin, "http://www.slugmag.com/articles/7037/Slamdance-Film-Review-Forever-Not-Alone.html", 01/2014, English)
"This documentary, directed by Monja Art and Caroline Bobek, follows a group of 13- to 14-year-old girls as they explore the intimacy of friendship at such a young age, specifically how young girls perceive sex, music, and life.
The film causes the viewer to feel a good deal of yearning. I certainly felt nostalgia for my youth as I was reminded of what it’s like to be young: trading makeup and secrets, losing friends as they move away, and talking about sex (but only in reference to what I read in Seventeen magazine).
The girls compliment each other appropriately and lift each other up in the way good family should. This is because, in their world, they are family, and it only becomes evident that time is fleeting when the summer’s end brings about the news of moving vans and new schools. Forever Not Alone is a beautiful documentary that is simultaneously funny, sad, and sweet."
(LEAH RAILEY, I will not diet, "http://www.iwillnotdiet.com/?tag=monja-art", 01/2014, English)
"In the documentary Forever Not Alone, directors Monja Art and Caroline Bobek take a fly-on-the-wall look at a uniquely bonded group of Austrian adolescent girls. It’s hard to imagine how the filmmakers were able to so thoroughly gain their trust and get so close, but there’s something exceptional about these girls: an easy confidence and sense of self that’s rare to find at any age, and a childlike ability to be exposed and open to the present moment. This seems to allow them to have a kind of closeness that’s like nothing I’ve witnessed, let alone experienced: a loving 6-way friendship that spans from kissing and cuddling to roughhousing and talking about boys and collectively experiencing their individual steps into dating and other aspects of adulthood. Also remarkable is that there seems to be no clear-cut hierarchy of leaders and followers within the group. The film has an inherent poignancy: one of the girls is about to move to Germany with her family, ripping a swatch from the collective fabric and likely putting an end to this idyllic phase of the girls’ lives."
(PAUL SBRIZZI, Hammer to Nail, "http://www.hammertonail.com/film.../slamdance-2014-preview", 01/2014, English)
"Monja Art and Caroline Bobek's Forever Not Alone (Austria) is an hypnotic 'tween documentary that allows its subjects to speak for themselves. It throws the viewer into the thick of what it's like to be a young girl today. While it explores the trials and tribulations of being young, fun, and hopelessly in love, it also captures youth's melancholy side. The end result is not only a time capsule for its subjects, but also a haunting reminder of a time older audiences may have forgotten."
(JESSE HAWTHORNE FICKS, San Francisco Bay Guardian Online,
"http://www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision/2014/02/20/slamdance-film-festival-2014-report", 02/2014)
"As a former youth lady (who mostly still feels like she’s behind in center school), Art and Bobek’s film, that promises “an astonishingly up-close and insinuate demeanour during a low holds of loyalty among a organisation of youth girls, as one of them prepares to pierce away” sounds like a arrange of must-see filmmaking any lady, immature or old, needs to see."
(W OX TER, "Slamdance 2014: 8 Films You Might Want to Trek Up a Mountain to See", 12/2013)
"Positiv formuliert ist der ganze Film. Und obwohl er notgedrungen, aufgrund der Alltagsrealität der sechs Hauptdarstellerinnen, eine Ode an die Freundinnenschaft ist, ist er zu kühl und zu nah dran, um das Teeniesein zu verkitschen."
(LISA BOLYOS, Augustin, "Wir werden ein bisschen andere Menschen sein", 09/2013, German)
"Insofern ist "Forever not alone", der bei den Hofer Filmtagen jeden bezauberte, nicht primär ein Film für Teenies, sondern für all die Ausgeschlossenen solcher Cliquen. Die Dokumentation stammt von zwei Frauen, der 29-jährigen Monja Art und der 33-jährigen Caroline Bobek, und sie sieht sich an, als hätte es dabei gar keine Kamera gegeben. Das ist die höchste Kunst des Dokumentierens, seine Figuren vergessen zu lassen, dass ein technisches Gerät in ihre Privatheit eindringt. [...] Art und Bobek tupfen ihre Szenen hin wie ein impressionistischer Maler seinen Pinsel, und daraus bezieht "Forever not alone" seine Leichtigkeit."
(HANNS-GEORG RODEK, Die Welt, "Im geheimen Kosmos der 13-jährigen Mädchen", 10/2013, German)
"Liffe: Caroline Bobek in Monja Art o nežni vznemirljivosti odraščanja" (Delo,
Tina Lešničar, 11/2013, Slovenian)
"Ljubljenka neodvisnega filma med velikimi" (Dnevnik, Špela Standeker, 11/2013, Slovenian)
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