Sandgirl

What does it mean to be trapped in one's own body and remain unseen? SANDMÄDCHEN draws us into the singular inner and outer world of Veronika Raila, a young autistic woman who is hypersensitive and has been severely disabled since birth. Raila knows the pain of not being recognised as a person. As a child, she was assessed as having an IQ of zero; only her parents believed otherwise. Today she publishes prose and poetry and studies literature and theology. Together with director Mark Michel, she turns the camera on her own life. Combining her writing and reflections with quietly observed moments of daily life, poetic images of nature and the fleeting yet striking sand animations of artist Anne Loeper, the film becomes an essay on freedom and perception.

SANDMÄDCHEN is far more than a continuation of VERONIKA, Michel's award-winning 2011 short about Raila. Veronika is no longer simply the protagonist, but a creative partner whose incisive writing carries the film and whose detailed visual suggestions repeatedly give form to her inner life. In a profound and at times disarmingly funny dialogue with Mark Michel, she becomes our guide to a world made of sand, music and words. The documentary focuses less on her limitations than on her hunger for knowledge and her lucid, resolute view of art and society.

By opening a window onto Veronika's life, SANDMÄDCHEN confronts us with our own prejudices. It offers a compelling starting point for conversations about society's treatment of disability and about where, if anywhere, the line between normality and disability can be drawn. Encountering Veronika makes it clear that categories such as “normal” and “disabled” lose their meaning, because there is no single “normal”. Like anyone else, she is defined not by what is supposedly normal about her, but by what makes her unique. This shift in perspective allows viewers to recognise her as an unmistakable individual. The film's sand animation creates a second visual register: its transient images render the fragile yet highly complex contours of Veronika's personality with remarkable precision. (Luc-Carolin Ziemann)