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GIRAFFE

By Arto HALONEN

ART FILMS PRODUCTION AFP OY - as PROD

Drama - Development 2025

Two groups of deserters fight for the only source of food left in the final days of the siege of Stalingrad.

- Year of production
- 2025
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- FINLAND, LATVIA, GERMANY
- Languages
- GERMAN, RUSSIAN
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Director(s)
- Arto HALONEN
- Writer(s)
- Ossi HAKALA
- Producer(s)
- Arto HALONEN (Art Films Production)
- Synopsis
- Stalingrad, January 1943. The Wehrmacht's 6th Army has been under siege for months. German soldier KONRAD EHRLER, a cynical survivor, runs a black market at the expense of others, aided by his protégé DIRKS. When Ehrler's food cache is destroyed, he hears a rumor that a giraffe from a local zoo has survived. Ehrler decides he must find the giraffe and use it for food. The journey leads Ehrler and the group he has assembled into the middle of a conflict, as Russian deserters also pursue the giraffe.
  
  The giraffe is found. A confusing firefight ensues in which the giraffe is hit by a stray shot and freezes to death in the square. A race against starvation begins as two desperate factions engage in a war of positions for the city's final food source. The Russians are led by the idealistic VASILI, who desperately needs food for his sick little brother. After complicated negotiations and violent clashes, Ehrler's cynicism begins to crumble. He sacrifices his comrades and sends Dirks to destroy the Russian shelter, but the plan fails, and Dirks dies.
  
  In the end, only Ehrler and Vasili survive. The Wehrmacht surrenders, and Ehrler tries to save Vasili, but is taken prisoner, and Vasili is executed as a deserter. Faced with the consequences of his actions, Ehrler is fated to survive long after his survival has lost all meaning.