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THE VOICE OF GOD

By Karl HAUPT

EXPRESSIONIST FILM COMPANY, LTD. - as PROD

Romance - Development 2025

The art of love as a concept - or - the concept of love as art

- Year of production
- 2025
- Genres
- Romance
- Countries
- GERMANY
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Karl HAUPT
- Writer(s)
- Karl HAUPT
- Producer(s)
- Karl HAUPT (Expressionist Film Company, Ltd.)
- Synopsis
- Cologne, mid-sixties.
  
  ALEX, an 18-year-old Mod enrolls in art school, where he falls in love with an angelic-like girl, GABRIELE, a 24-year-old fellow art student.
  
  An uneven, but tender relationship develops, but Gabriele graduates soon and finds a scenic design job at the Cologne opera.
  
  A new opera about the Cologne churches is in the works; Gabriele is sent up in the many church towers of Cologne to make drawings for the stage backdrop.
  Gabriele is fully absorbed by her new job, and poor Alex slips from her mind.
  
  This is where Alex’s search for Gabriele begins.
  
  Alex finds out that Gabriele is up in the church towers, somewhere, but with the many churches in Cologne his search is futile. Regardless, he rides his Mod Vespa from church to church, only to find out that she is not there.
  
  Finally, a mischievous church custodian, FISCHER, offers to help poor Alex. Meant more as a prank, he contacts the Brotherhood of Church Custodians and arranges with them to ring a church bell at a certain time when Gabriele is in one of the churches, as a guide for Alex.
  
  Soon Alex is chasing church bells on his Vespa, much to the amusement of the custodians, and still misses Gabriele every time. There are just too many churches in Cologne to get it right.
  
  But Alex is too much of an artist to not recognize the conceptual aspects of his pursuit, he feels like he is performing in his own concept art piece, and therefore follows through with it regardless of what it takes.
  
  However, one day the unmistakable mighty cathedral bell rings at the given time.
  
  Alex rushes to the Cologne Cathedral, the custodian is already awaiting him and sends him up into the tower. There, Alex finally meet Gabriele again. Love blossoms.
  
  Very soon though, the opera piece Gabriele had been working on has its premiere. Gabriele’s scenic designs prove to be highly popular, she is offered immediately to design a new production at the prestigious Viennese opera; she has to leave town immediately.
  
  Alex only finds out from Fischer that she is gone; devastated he slinks through the streets of Cologne.
  
  Feeling sorry for him, Fischer quickly contacts the Brotherhood of Church Custodians again - at the prearranged time all the bells of Cologne mysteriously begin to ring.
  
  Alex realizes it is for him, he takes it so much to heart that he gets on his scooter, mapping his route to Vienna, to pursue his love yet again and to follow the concept of love as art rigorously.
  
  --/--
  
  This story touches on Magical Realism elements, which are part of contemporary concept art ideas, where the suspension of reality is used for narrative purposes, very much in the same way fairy tales work.
  
  Throughout the story it is important to remember that it is set in the mid-sixties, where no cell phones, social media or other forms of communication existed. Outside of a written letter or a landline phone, which not too many people had back then, it was difficult to reach someone. You had to go there.
- Beginning of shooting
- May 01, 2025
- End of shooting
- Jun 15, 2025