Berlin-based artist Stefan Hayn spent two years recording his life in paintings and cell-phone videos. For 2024 (2023), world-premiering in Berlinale Forum, he edited them into an original and highly intimate film about his life, his family, his work process and his observations of the world.
His paintings are bright, colourful and multi-layered. They show what he sees right in front of him: his family of three women sitting in the living room, in the garden, at the dining table, always accompanied by flowers, looking at the phone, reading, knitting, talking or just thinking.
Sometimes he shows how the work develops, in different takes; you never see him actually painting. What’s more, his models don’t seem to notice him, they’re used to being documented.
The film offers a sense of genuine intimacy, as we see the painting and its original setting at the same time; hearing Hayn’s heavy breathing as he holds his cell phone to shoot this scene. He employs the same approach outdoors, setting up his easel in front of very public, even Berlin’s iconic places: the Jewish Museum, the Holocaust Memorial, the House of German Business. In these scenes, the painting – seen in various stages of development – obscures our view of the subject, leaving us with Hayn’s interpretation of this reality. Sometimes a bystander enters this artistic bubble with questions or comments.
Hayn’s own comments or reflections are rare, a fact which seems to heighten the importance of what he has to say. When he paints the Springer publishing house (the publisher of some of Germany’s right-wing media platforms), he notes how the Pride flag in front of the building has been replaced with a German flag. One wonders why they had the flag there in the first place and what prompted them to remove it. Was it a pragmatic, idealistic or even provocative action?
2024 (2023) is a study in patience and attention, allowing plenty of time and opportunity for the viewer to think about who and what they’re looking at (and indeed to muse over whether we should be looking at them in the first place), the details in his paintings, the sensations and emotions they evoke, what it takes to be an artist and the choices you make, what makes a good painting…and the meaning of art in general.
Hayn’s paintings are snapshots of his world, like the photos people take with their cell phones every day. A quick picture of a situation, a building, someone sitting across from you, a nice bouquet of flowers. But hissnapshots take longer – maybe hours, sometimes days. His framing is deliberate, the colours he uses are an interpretation – does that make his document any less realistic, any less true?
Germany, 64 minutes, 2025
Writer-Director Stefan Hayn
Cinematography and editing Stefan Hayn
Sound design Steffen Martin, Jochen Jezussek
Sound Stefan Hayn
Producer Stefan Hayn
Production company Stefan Hayn Filme und Malerei (Berlin, Germany)
World sales Stefan Hayn Films and Painting
