Film production in Hamburg & Schleswig-Holstein
In Development
Highway (20 min)
Drama / Fantasy
Director / Writer: Max Kassun
2025
In-house production – currently in post-production
Completed
Quiet Fires (Short Film)
Drama / Fantasy – 2025 – 10 min
The 18-year-old Jona tries to hold his family together—consisting of his self-harming sister and overwhelmed mother—while grappling with his responsibility in this dynamic and his own right to vulnerability.
Director / Writer: Max Kassun
Camera: Laura Titze
Editing: Philip Reinking
Sound: Anna Magda Lino
Starring: Emilie Neumeister, Robin Long, Bettina Lohmeyer
*Official Selection – Filmkunstfest MV 2025
Stay a little longer
Drama / Thriller – 2024 – 86 min
The story of two young high school students who are invited to your teacher's home. During this forbidden evening, an intense relationship develops, that raises questions of power and social norms.
Director / Screenplay / Editing: Max Kassun
Camera: Nepomuk Pfaff
Sound: Enrico Quail
With: Chiara Frensdorf, Melina Petala, Erik Rodrigo Liedtke
*Official Selection – Lisboa Indie Film Festival 2024
*Cinema Premiere Germany: 09.12.2024
Kunstkörper (Short Film)
Experimental film – 2020 – 5 min
"Kunstkörper" is about a 18-year-old girl who is confronted with her mother, a young boy and ultimately herself.
Director / Camera / Editing: Max Kassun
Screenplay: Max Kassun & Melina Petala
Sound: Pat Mackinlay
Starring: Melina Petala, Jannes Hagen, Kerstin Poetting
*Audience Award – Harzmovienale 2020
*Official Selection – UFA Youth Short Film Festival 2020
*Official Selection – Northern Lights Short-Film Festival 2021
Space head (short film)
Fantasy-Drama – 2016 – 15 min
Space head“ shows the world from the perspective of 16-year-old psychotic Jim. We experience his everyday life and his surreal trip into madness.
Director / Writer: Max Kassun
Camera: Nepomuk Pfaff
With: Lennart Kötschau, Marco Beck, Christopher Kalis
*Camgaroo Award München– nominated
*Absurd Film Festival – winner
*Baltic Arts Neustadt – nominated
Road to Latokya
Road movie – 2015 – 35 min
Two nameless protagonists live in their own world in a small cabin in the woods. One evening, they watch a film on television about a mysterious realm called "Latokya." In the film, they see a princess and instantly fall madly in love with her. So the two set out to find the princess and the mysterious land, unaware that it is a fantasy film and the place does not actually exist.
Director / Writer: Max Kassun
Co-Director: Marco Beck
Camera: Christopher Kalis
With: Max Kassun, Marco Beck, Friedemann Roumiantsev, Zoe Schirren
*Funded through a Crowdfunding campaign
About MANIKA Films
MANIKA Films was founded in 2015 by filmmaker Max Kassun (originally under the name "ApocartDesign") to support the development and production of exciting fictional short and feature film projects.
We are always on the lookout for new stories and thrilling projects! So far, we’ve produced short films, music videos, commercials, and a feature film. We also have access to a pool of equipment, as well as crew members and friends from the film scene in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and beyond!
About Max Kassun
Max Kassun is a director and screenwriter based in Hamburg. As a producer and founder of MANIKA Films, he has realized numerous commercials, award-winning short films, and a feature film.
At the age of just 14, he won the Camgaroo Award—a prize for independent filmmakers—with one of his short films and has been fully dedicated to filmmaking ever since. While still in school, he financed his first 30-minute feature film (Road to Latokya) through crowdfunding, took part in an international exchange program for young filmmakers, and won the Youth Film Prize of Schleswig-Holstein with one of his shorts, which was also selected for the Schleswig-Holstein Film Festival. After graduating high school, he worked as a freelance director and editor on various projects before co-founding Studio Nordlicht GmbH with Leo Bloom in early 2017. In the following years, he focused entirely on creative work in the fields of commercial and image film production.
Since 2023, he has returned to working as a freelance director, now fully focused on fiction. In 2024, his first feature film—the independent drama Bleib doch noch, a co-production between MANIKA Films and Nordlicht Filmproduktion—premiered to a sold-out audience at the ABATON cinema in Hamburg. That same year, he directed his latest project, the 10-minute fantasy short film Leise Feuer, which premiered at the 34th Filmkunstfest MV.
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