Haytham

The animated film »Haytham« is based on numerous interviews we conducted with young prisoners at Wiesbaden Prison. From a wide variety of biographical episodes, INVOLVE formed the script about the fictitious Moroccan Haytham. 
In a similarly participatory process, our partner team from White Rabbit developed the illustrations with another group of prisoners and animated them into a semi-documentary animated film, whose music was also developed and recorded by composer Niklas Kleber in collaboration with the prisoners.

The film receives the audience award for the best short film at the Exground Filmfest in Wiesbaden 2018.

A not really fictional story about the spiral of longing and escape, guilt and violence.

After fleeing from Morocco, young Haytham ends up as an illegal on the outskirts of a large Spanish city. After unsuccessful attempts to finance his life as a scrap collector, he gets deeper and deeper into the city's criminal milieu and realises that he will inevitably become a murderer if he does not escape these structures. His renewed escape leads to the home of a single father and his young daughter, who treat him like a member of their family. An apparent idyll. But the demons of the past lurk everywhere.

Exhibition »Täter« (Perpetrators) in the Walkmühle

As an extension of the project, a multimedia exhibition was on display from April 26 to Mai 05, 2019 at the Künstlerverein Walkmühle.

During this period original drawings by the prisoners, interview excerpts with the real-life models of the film characters, production sketches and animation processes were exhibited in addition to a »making of« documentary, a concert with Niklas Kleber and, of course, the film itself.

On the project page of the White Rabbit Studio you can find further insights into the development of Haytham, especially on a visual level.

A hr2 Podcast was also recorded for the exhibition.