The Night Is Dark and Brighter than the Day

Filmmaker Christina Friedrich asks 33 primary school children about their fears, taking us on a long night-journey through a magic world of their creation. What can the ‘real world’ learn from the games and rituals of children?

Christina Friedrich has a serious interest in the world of children, their imagination and all which Western culture associates with juvenile behaviour and childish fantasy. For The Night Is Dark and Brighter than the Day, Friedrich went to her birthplace of Nordhausen (Thuringia, Germany) where she invited pupils to work with her on a film about fears.

What begins with Friedrich talking to a gym full of kids, inviting them to share their fears with her and each other, soon turns into a series of images and scenes that feel fairytale-like. In these, the children speak not only of angst and anxieties but also dreams, beliefs and visions, Gods, dinosaurs and angels and other miraculous and wondrous creatures. Friedrich moves back and forth between different levels of fantasy, sometimes the children wear hand-made masks as they act out their own rituals, while at others they make a sense of difference palpable through simple yet weird gestures. Whatever one might want to call The Night Is Dark and Brighter than the Day, this is certain: it’s unlike anything cinema has ever known.