For her documentary Violently Happy, Paola Calvo accompanied the former dancer Felix Ruckert, whose choreographies coused irritation in the art business and who founded the Berlin project Schwelle 7. For experiments in BDSM, meditation and creative bodywork, this centre is a protected space for the participants and their notions of sexuality and pain. A courageous, insightful lm that shows how liberating the testing of power structures and the acting out of sexual fantasies can be in the game of dominance and submission.

Jury Statement:
»Violently Happy offers us an insight into what is for most people an alien world of pain, controlled violence and alternative sexuality. Paola’s participatory perspective allows us to immerse ourselves in a new realm, not pornographic or voyeuristic, yet still explicit. The film invites us to follow the dramaturgy of the camera: it begins with images of bodies and increasingly discovers the sexes. This intimacy creates a new open space, and the audience is given time to discover it for themselves. The beauty of the images lives from the visual power of the cinematographer and her attitude, as well as the trust of the people in front of the camera given to Paola.«