by Alion Çaçi – Berlin, 17.02.2025
“I hope that I can continue working.”
I sat with writer-director Florian Pochlatko and lead actress Luisa-Céline Gaffron. It’s the first time I have met them both, but their eye-level way of talking makes me wonder, “Did I meet them before?” The carpet-surrounded room and the soft textile walls that boost sound made me feel at home.
How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World follows Pia, a 26-year-old woman who has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. As she returns to her parents’ suburban home in Vienna, Pia finds that re-entering everyday life is far from easy. She struggles with the challenges of keeping a job, dealing with complicated past relationships, and managing her mental health—all while feeling judged by society. The movie premiered in Berlinale 2025 in the category Perspectives. This is Pochlatkos’ debut film, produced by Vienna-based production company Golden Girls Film.
At its core, the film asks a simple question about freedom. In the psychiatric hospital, Pia’s life was tightly controlled, even if it sometimes felt suffocating. But when she returns to everyday life, she faces messy relationships, job troubles, and societal pressure. It makes you wonder if freedom is in strict order or in accepting life’s natural chaos. The film does not give a clear answer. Florian says the biggest compliment the film gets at the moment is that it suddenly resonates with people.
“At the starting point, it was super scary to talk about these topics,” Florian comments on the relevance of the topic to the audience. “Now, three years later, I get messages from people like, dude, this is me. Yes, this is also me, you know?”
Is this a personal story?
I asked Florian about his inspiration or if he put his personal experiences or things he knows personally into the movie.
“It’s not even about if it is very personal,” he answers. “It’s more like taking what you do very seriously. And then it suddenly gets superpersonal, and then it’s automatically super political.” And then we share a smile when Florian ends his thought with, “And then you’re in deep shit about it.”
Luisa-Céline shares her thoughts on the topic, saying that even if you’re not bipolar, many things in the character resonate with the audience.”Like this dissonance of capitalism, climate change, everything, everyone trying to act like, oh, it’s okay, we’re just gonna continue.”
When asked about future projects, I could feel Florian’s honesty in answering, “I hope I can continue working.” He says it’s not easy, and he hopes to get funding since he has already been rejected five times in a row in 2024 (with a different project).
How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World will open the Diagonale Film Festival on September 29th, 2025.
