Germany 2024
Opening November 28, 2024

Directed by: Chiara Fleischhacker
Writing credits: Chiara Fleischhacker
Principal actors: Emma Drogunova, Friederike Becht, Paul Wollin, Barbara Philipp, Edith Stehfest

Jenny (Emma Drogunova) is expecting her second child with her boyfriend Bolle (Paul Wollin). A new baby is a bad idea, considering that she hasn’t been responsible for her first child, a six-year-old son living with her own mother, Renate. Both she and Bolle are totally addicted to crystal meth. Also, she must serve a prison sentence. This is a dark phase, until the midwife Maria (Friederike Becht) arrives to take charge. At first Jenny is suspicious of a stranger in her life, but Maria is full of care and helps her face problems, so that Jenny becomes more responsible for the birth of her new daughter Lexa.

This is a relatively simple story, told slowly without much text, but with many up-close, face-to-face film scenes. Chiara Fleischhacker wrote the script and directed this, her first film. Interesting is that Jenny’s fingernails, always perfectly filed and often colored bright red, seem to pop up in every scene, almost having a personality of their own. Often there seems to be more controversy about the relationship between Jenny and Bolle, than about the pregnancy. The title Vena stands for the word “vein,” which, here, represents the connection between a mother and her unborn child. There is no real ending as if the story is now still continuing along the same lines. Actress Emma Drogunova was named European Shooting Star at the 2019 Berlinale Film Festival and received the Grimme-Prize for her television film, Nichts was uns passiert, in 2024. (Becky T.)