Austrian filmmaker Rosa Friedrich is shooting Who Is Afraid of God (Wer hat Angst vor Gott), her first fiction feature. The coming-of-age comedy follows an 18-year-old influencer who turns a shy outsider into an internet star and pseudo-saint, and production started in Leipzig on 23 September.
Katharina Hirschberg plays Bella, a smart and ambitious influencer, while Lena Urzendowsky plays Maria, a dreamy loner who develops mysterious wounds that look like the stigmata of Jesus. Bella sees an opportunity and builds Maria into an online phenomenon, complete with healing sessions, likes and religious merchandise. The two girls become unlikely friends, but Maria starts to believe she really can heal people, and the pair lose control of the persona they have created. Heike Makatsch, Inge Maux, Hubert Kramar and Sabine Timoteo complete the cast.
Friedrich was born in East Berlin and studied philosophy, psychology and film studies at the Freie Universität Berlin before training under Michael Haneke and Jessica Hausner at the Vienna Film Academy. Her graduation film, Potted Palm Trees, screened at Karlovy Vary and Nouveau Cinéma Montréal and was nominated for the First Steps Award. Her no-budget experimental feature Wander went to the Max Ophüls Festival, and her first documentary, My Friend the Porn Star, premiered in Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition this year.
She co-wrote the script with Joshua Jádi. The 28-day shoot moves from Leipzig to Hannover before wrapping in Vienna, reflecting the film’s split between German and Austrian partners. The film is a 50/50 German-Austrian co-production, with Sabine Moser, Oliver Neumann and Klara Pollak producing for Vienna’s FreibeuterFilm and Nicole Gerhards producing for Berlin’s NiKo Film. ORF and Saarländischer Rundfunk are taking part, and many of the key crew roles are held by women, including production designer Nadja Götze, costume designer Laura Yasemin Schäffler and sound designer Flora Rajakowitsch. Jakob Wiessner is director of photography and Matthias Writze is editing.
Support has come from Creative Europe MEDIA for development, from the Austrian Film Institute and Filmfonds Wien, and on the German side from the FFA, nordmedia, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and the DFFF. Completion is scheduled for the winter of 2027 to 2028, so audiences will have a long wait. The story of online fame and faith gives the debut a strongly contemporary hook. The film marks Friedrich’s move from documentary and experimental work into a fully financed fiction feature with an established cast.
