Anorexia Feelgood Songs

A sizzling hot picture-book summer. The boys spend their days along the canal, they swim, they drink sweet schnapps, laugh, dare each other, just waste time. But while the sun drapes a warm filter over the scenery, one of the boys goes more and more quiet, doesn’t fit in with the others’ carefree pattern any longer. He becomes thinner, paler, weaker. Barely noticeable at first, it becomes increasingly obvious that he is ill - and that his illness has a name: anorexia nervosa. Nobody knows, really, when it began, he himself possibly least of all. But after a life-threatening incident, everyone around him realises that they must do something.

The sound of youth and of summer holidays permeates Anorexia Feelgood Songs, powerful, rhythmic and emotional. Vibrant, lively snapshots, but also sequences filled with deep desire and loneliness show a young man whose search for recognition turns into a rebellion against society and its images of masculinity, which he simply does not fit. Gently, playfully and with great clarity Fayer Koch tells a tale of how difficult it can be to become aware of one’s self. He dives into the complex interchange between exterior and interior awareness and asks whether or not everyone has a right to their own body. And anyway, who is to define what ‘beauty’ means?