The Living Proof tells the story of a woman in her mid-40s who feels increasingly alienated – from her surroundings, her family, and herself. Withdrawn to the attic of her house, she looks out over the village she once moved to full of hope. In an attempt to re-understand the world around her and her position in it, she begins a “scientific investigation of the collective conscious and unconscious of the place.”
Accompanied by the conscientious village chronicler, the esoteric pastor, and two outsiders, she embarks on a journey into the depths of the remote spot. The boundaries between observer and observed become blurred. The deeper she delves into the mechanisms of the village, the clearer it becomes that her research is not only about the place, but also about her own nature – and the nature of human beings in general. She herself becomes a “porous spot” through which long-suppressed ghosts push their way to the surface. What begins as a rational analysis becomes increasingly destabilized – because the structures she seeks to unravel take hold of her.
The Living Proof is a reflection on social dilemmas and the permeability of boundaries between inside and outside, individual and collective. Do we shape the world, or does it shape us? Or is that even a contradiction?
Novel
Lola Randl, born in Munich in 1980, works as a screenwriter and director for cinema and television. In addition to television series such as Landschwärmer and feature films such as Von Bienen und Blumen, she is also the author of highly acclaimed literary works. She has received numerous awards for her novel Der Große Garten (2019), which has been translated into Dutch, Spanish and Slovakian, and was nominated for the German Book Prize.
Most recently, she was awarded a scholarship from Villa Massimo in Rome, where Randl has been living ever since.
