MYSTERIOUS JOY
“THE STORY OF MY BODY”
Feature Film/90min/English
A poetic dramedy with magical realist touches, a bittersweet coming-of-middle-age story told through the intimate geography of a woman’s body.
Logline:
On her 50th birthday, a woman receives an unusual photo shoot that traces the map of her body—wrinkles, scars, and all—leading her down a hallucinatory journey through love, loss, and the salty ghosts of her seaside youth.
Themes: Self-Perception/Awareness/Identity
"The body says what words cannot." (Martha Graham)
Synopsis:
Story Of My Body follows Marlene, a wry, sharp-tongued newspaper columnist who’s spent the last decade mostly confined to her balcony, watching life roll by beneath her like a distant tide. For her 50th birthday, her over-scheduled daughter gifts her a surreal “Story of My Body” photo session, each portrait focusing on a different part of her timeworn body.
At first, Marlene scoffs. But as the camera clicks, zooming in on her map of wrinkles, the faded tattoo from a reckless night by the sea, a burn on her lip from a long-forgotten lover’s cigarette, the ghostly groove where her wedding ring once sat, a childhood scar on her shin, her weary feet, and the streaks of silver now threading through her hair, she’s pulled into vivid vignettes of her past. The photo studio transforms in her mind: sand crunches underfoot, briny air fills her lungs, and waves whisper. Sometimes, she even finds herself on a river boat in the city, eyes closed, imagining it’s the sea she once called home.
Between shots, Marlene tries to unravel the mystery of the quiet photographer behind the lens, perhaps to distract herself from how exposed she feels, or perhaps hoping to make one last unexpected connection.
“The Story Of My Body” is a winking, melancholic, and beautifully strange ode to the landscapes etched into us by time, part memory, part hallucination, entirely human.
Director’s Statement
"Story Of My Body" began with a simple, slightly morbid thought: if our bodies are the diaries we forgot we were keeping, what stories would they tell?
I’ve always been fascinated by how time inscribes itself into us, wrinkles like gentle landslides, scars as accidental hieroglyphs, gray hairs shimmering like salt. This film is my ode to that strange, living scrapbook. It’s about a woman who’s spent half her life observing the world and writing clever columns about it, only to finally turn the magnifying glass on herself.
The protagonist, Marlene, is a columnist, because writing about life is not quite the same as living it. I wanted to explore how easy it is to hide behind words while quietly avoiding the messy, visceral sea of experience.
Stylistically, I wanted this story to feel like memory itself: fragmented, sometimes absurd, often beautiful, tinged with longing. That’s why we let the sea invade rooms, let past and present overlap like double exposures. It’s also why we leaned into an offbeat, slightly ironic tone. Life is too ridiculous and too short not to laugh at, even in our darkest corners.
The sea is both a literal and metaphorical undercurrent here, it’s where Marlene first fell in love, where she got that reckless tattoo, where she swore she’d always return. Of course, she didn’t. Most of us don’t. Until, maybe, it’s almost too late.
Ultimately, “Story Of My Body” is a quiet rebellion against disappearing. It’s a reminder that even if we stop going to the sea, the sea never quite leaves us, it stays under our skin, whispering, waiting, salty and alive.
“THE DINNER”
Mini-Series/ 6 episodes with 45min each/German
Psychological Drama/Chamber Play
Logline:
As Clara, a passionate chef prepares her own special birthday dinner, each course and decoration she arranges unravels a new secret, plunging her into a surreal psychological spiral where hidden truths, distorted memories, and escalating problems blur the line between reality and illusion.
Themes: Our own truths/Imagination/Becoming of self
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” (“Alice In Wonderland”)
Statement by the Screenwriter – Natalie MacMahon
With "The Dinner", I tell the story of a woman who must confront her repressed past in a single evening. Clara, a strong yet internally torn woman, is faced with a truth she has long suppressed on big birthday.
I am fascinated by psychological stories with female protagonists who find themselves at the limits of their perception. Food is more than just a motif here – it becomes the key to her memories, each course revealing a new truth.
"A Course into the Unknown" is an intense chamber play full of tension and emotions. A night where nothing is as it seems – and at the end of which awaits a truth that changes everything.
Short Film /10min/English
Arthouse Drama Noir
Logline: A melancholic singer engrossed in a late-night recording session encounters a mysterious stranger, who sets her on a bitter sweet journey to follow her inner yearnings.
Themes: Following ones’s heart, Breaking free from one’s own limitations
Status: in script development
***Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages.***
***When pain sits so deep that you are unable to speak (or sing).****
***If your heart could talk to you, what would it say?***
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” (Dostoevsky)
Screenwriter’s Statement – Mysterious Joy
With Mysterious Joy, I explore the silent battles we fight within ourselves, the longing for freedom, the weight of our own limitations, and the mysterious forces that guide us toward our true desires.
At its heart, this film is about listening to the whispers of the soul, to the unspoken pain that silences us, and to the quiet yet undeniable pull of our inner yearnings. Our protagonist, a melancholic singer lost in the solitude of a late-night recording session, encounters a stranger who forces her to confront the one voice she has been ignoring: her own.
