Hasenfuß

Directed by Max Conway & Elisabeth Jakobi, 2026

Hasenfuß follows Toni, a geriatric nurse and the star striker of his local football club, who refuses to accept a life stuck in the amateur leagues. Reliant on heavy painkillers to play, he begins stealing from the nursing home's medicine cabinet, risking not just his own health.

This was my bachelor thesis film and one of the most personal projects I have worked on so far. Growing up in a small village in the Austrian countryside, I feel like I personally know all of the character depicted.

The film is rooted in family life. The football pitch is where we see Toni at his best and most alive, but it is the home where we start to understand him and root for him. Directors Max Conway and Elisabeth Jakobi brought a deep knowledge of film to the project. The visual language grew out of extensive conversations and a lot of shared references rooted in British social realism, rough and documentary-like, but carefully crafted.

The look is grainy and slightly bleached, reminiscent of overexposed 16mm, evoking the heat of a summer without relying on warm colors. The camera is handheld throughout, often erratic and close to the character. The coverage is deliberately minimal, with many sequences built through blocking and camera movement rather than cutting, with jump cuts used to raise the energy.

For the football match, we made a deliberate shift. Long lenses on tripods replaced the handheld camera, mirroring the visual language of live sports coverage and giving Toni a different kind of presence, fluid and professional from the perspective of the spectators. The scene involved around 200 extras as spectators and 20 players, some of whom needed to act. Months of preparation went into the choreography, storyboarding and logistics. Among the cast were four children, the youngest five years old, which meant shorter shooting days and a lot of spontaneity and sensitivity on set.

The film will have its premiere at the Tel Aviv Film Festival in 2026.