The film will not feature any actors. Instead, the director commissioned a painter to create portraits of the story’s characters and had these portraits printed on life-size foam board panels to create cardboard cutouts. These cutouts will be carried by volunteers selected from the local community. This staging choice, reminiscent of the traditional Japanese puppet theater (Bunraku), stems from the director’s desire to break free from the confines of classical representation. He will shoot the film using a method of modeling and casting. Based on notes from the diary of J. F. Oberlin—a clergyman known for his philanthropy—Georg Büchner wrote a story that recounts the twenty days J. M. R. Lenz, a playwright, spent in a mountain village near Strasbourg where Oberlin was stationed. The story begins with Lenz’s arrival in the village. Though his inner restlessness is evident from the moment he arrives, Lenz tries to adapt to village life in the days that follow, thanks to the hospitable and dignified demeanor of Oberlin and his family.
