Student Academy Awards Series Part 1: Kruste - Jens Kevin Georg

Welcome to our Student Academy Awards Series where we are highlight and celebrate some of this years Student Academy Award winners over the next eight days leading up to this months ceremony in London. Let's kick things off with Live Action winner Kruste.

Kruste, dir. Jens Kevin Georg

Kruste comes into the Student Academy Awards as an already highly-accomplished film on the festival circuit. Having won Oscar-qualifying awards at Indy Shorts International Film Festival and Odense International Film Festival, it is now thrice-qualified with this Student Academy Awards win. 

Director Jens Kevin Georg represents Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf with Kruste, a graduation film he jokes in his bio “caused him to gain 15 kilos while shooting.” He is now attending the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. It’s hard not to read Jens’ bio and not smile at his humour and charm. 

How did he get into filmmaking?

“I have bad handwriting. People couldn’t read my stories so I had to film them.” 

One of his personal accomplishments? Being a goalkeeper which sadly came to an end at the age of 15 due to his “bad eyesight, tiny hands and a broken heart.” He also encourages anyone to contact him if you are interested in watching him fail at skateboarding.

Kruste tells the story of Fabi, a twelve year old boy who lives in a family where getting a scar is a rite of passage. It is a way to prove yourself as one of the family (seen by a giant family tree showing the ways each person got their scars). Fabi’s father and grandfather decide it’s about time for Fabi to receive his first scar and are on a mission to get him one during a trip to his grandfathers house. 

Fabi appears different from his family. While his dad and grandfather are hardened and covered in scars (shoutout to the makeup team of Laura Wronkowitz, Hannah Weickert and Jana Erger for the realistic wounds and scars), Fabi is sensitive and soft. Actor Philip Kapell does a stellar job in his portrayal, giving off a gentle melancholy throughout the short. He shows kindness in small but powerful ways; he helps a beetle on its back back onto its feet. Even his little sister seems to have a bit more toughness to her as compared to Fabi. She is wowed by the family tree and impersonates her dad, at one point giving Fabi a playful push to the ground. 

Fabi tries to psych himself up as he prepares to partake in a plan devised by his father and grandfather to get him his first scar. The production design by Linda Bruna is outstanding in this short. Aided by a brilliant set piece - an abandoned roller coaster - Jens Kevin Georg creates a scene that will grab your attention and hold it as questions race through your mind of how everything will turn out. Will he receive the “badass” scar his family wants for him? Will he chicken out? Or is a fate far worse in store?

Jens is a self-described director of “happy-sad” films and Kruste definitely fits that M.O.. 

“In our family, life tears us open and we endure it! You can’t just pick and choose. That’s how we are. All of us. And anyone who’s not like that… is not one of us.”

Fabi’s dads words cut deep as he lays into his son - proving sometimes emotional scars hurt more than physical ones.

I won’t spoil whether Fabi comes around to receive his right of passage or not, but Kruste ends on a note that left me smiling and completely charmed by Fabi as he accepts himself and decides to forge his own path in life. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray