„The device used to illustrate how off balance we feel when plunged into a culture and language that we know nothing about was brilliant, it really captured the feeling. The resolution also captured the feeling of just letting go, going with the flow, and suddenly you feel more congruent.“

„Translation Possible offers an interesting interpretation of what it means to be an outsider in a community. Through the use of symbolic meaning, the filmmakers depict the challenges and confusion an outsider might have within a new context, but with gradual immersion it is possible to not only walk in another´s shoes, but in doing so, be able to connect with others and learn cultural nuances.“

„Translation Possible provides a foundation for dialogue and insight on the realities of living in a global society. In just a view minutes, this film gets at the heart of understanding and appreciating the alienating effects of difference. The initial struggle to make sense of an alternate worldview normalizes the process of encountering a new reality. As illustrated in this short film, by suspending one´s own perspective and seeing the world through the eyes of the other. The silent nature of the film allows viewers to focus on their own unconschious processes that emerge when navigating unfamilia cultural landscapes. Through nonverbal dialectic engagement, it is recognized that translation is indeed possible.“

„Translation Possible is an eloquent rendering of the experience of intercultural exploration and discovery. Proceeding wordlessly, the Germanic narrator guides the viewer through a landscape so novel to most Western eyes as to be slightly hallucinatory or surreal. There is a dreamlike atmosphere as the young blond traveler proceeds through a highly modern urban terrain bursting with machinery, people, and a rich tapestry of sound, ranging from the mechanical to the shrilling of shistles to discourse in Chinese, somethimes in the form of coordinated chanting. The visibly befuddled girl makes contact with a local boy, setting the stage for an insightful depiction of cross-cultural contact and communication. Only 11 minutes in length, Translation Possible is an engaging an useful resource for both intrepid traveles and instructors at the high school or college level.“

„In this short film by Germin writer and director Susanne Horizon Franzel, the problem of alienation is presented in a light and engaging way. Whe a young German tourist arrives in Shanghai she finds that everyone is moving in the opposite direction. People, cars, busses and even time seem to run backwards. Until she finds someone who can help her adapt to this new environment, whe is lost in a wolrd of distorted sight and sound. Only after making a connection with a resident of the city is the tourist able to make sense of her surroundings and enjoy her visit. When she returns hove, she sees someone in a situation similar to one she recently experienced herself. Told with sound but not words, the film effectively illustrates how new settings can often be unsettling and disorienting. Also important is how a guide can help make translation of the environment possible, even without a common language.Made with the assistance of the Goethe-Institut and German General Consulate in Shanghai, the film effectively engages the viewer in the question of the impacts of cultural and language barriers in our increasingly globalized world. The filmmaker combined interestin visual and audio techniques to present the feelings of alienation and adaptation. Recommended.“

„A European tourist arrives in Shanghai, and finds herself totally disoriented in a different culture. In TRANSLATION POSSIBLE we see the process of overcoming cultural and language barriers rendered in a surprising way, illustrated visually, without words. We marvel at the filmmaker´s clever technique that so effectively illustrates people out-of-sync with their surroundings.It is sympathetic and instructive both to the person who finds themselves in a new situation that seems incoherent, and to a person who wants to help someone seemingly overwhelmed by their new environment.“

„Subject: Intercultural communication – DramaKeywords: Culture shock – Drama Short films, Experimental films

ABSTRACT: Encapsulating the tourist experience, we follow a young German tourist through Shanghai. Her inability to communicate with the city´s residents forces her to abandon her preconceived notions of Chines culture and accept herself as the Other in their eyes. Despite its brevity, the film manages to subvert our standard image of tourism, offering a way to understand how humans communicate in gerneral.

Not so much a story ABOUT tourism as a vision OF tourism from both the resident´s and visitor´s perspective, Translation Possible follows a young German woman as she tries to find her way around Shanghai and captures her inability to communicate with the people around her. In a compelling series of visual and audio cues, the film focuses on the manner in which true connections can be forged without words.

One of the most compelling facets of the film is the manner in which the filmmaker uses the movement of people as a central metaphor for the discovery of Self as Other.Movement – walking. Driving, bicycling- demonstrates the degree to which one accepts and understands place. As the young woman exits the train, she immediately encounters hundreds of Shanghai´s residents moving in the opposite direction. Her discomfort is obvious as she rides the escalator face-to-face with a stranger, who is riding the up escalator while facing down. He, too, shows discomfort at being forced to deal with an outsider who does not understand the customs of the land.While the tourist faces a city of people she does not understand because they are not like her, the local residents face a stranger who is noct following the conventions of using local facilities and public space. Later, whe the tourist encounters a man who manages to communicate with her using body gestures, both resident and visitor enter shared social space. The tourist learns from the impromptu guide ho to move to the rhythm of the locas, read social cues, and develop an overall better sense of her surroundings.

Questions of backward/forward are multifaceted in this film. First presenting a judgment in which the Western tourist is “knowing” and correct (moving forward) while the local residents are “ignorant” and wrong (moving backward), the film then subverts this cliché by bisually alienating the tourist. In a world where evereyone else moves in one way, the tourist appears nonsensical as she moves in the opposite direction. Furthermore, the film forces its audience to consider the notions of backward and forward in the context of communication. When understanding is absent, people move in different directions; when communication is established visitors and residents move forward together.

Translation Possible demands a more nuanced awareness of tourism and of intercommunication. In recasting the Other as Self, the film asks the audience to consider both roles, and to learn about people outside the constraints of customary tourism travel. Although the tourist possesses a travel guide, she finds its usefulness questionable; when she enters a shop to buy a map, the guidebook does not hellp her to explain what she wants and, in the end, serves as a means of preventing her from getting what she wants. Her inability to communicate through spoken Chinese causes Shanghai residents to walk or turn away in frustration.

The fact that the film does not use spoken narrative reinforces the relative uselessness of speech in a travel destination with a different language and set of customs. Only after the young woman stops trying to use her guidebook is the Chinese man able to work out a system of gestures with which to communicate. The ensuing wordless communication leads to a friendly relationship between the two, promptin the resident to purchase a gift for the young traveler (again inverting the standar vision of tourism in which the outsider buys goods to bring home). The young tourist returns home manivestly changed.

The film uses the music soundtrack to underscore meaning. That a transformation has occurred within the woman is clear. A changing and wordless soundtrack denotes the woman´s journey from a hopeful bur unfamiliar beginning to a comforting return home. Her mounting frustration at being unable to establish any kind of communication, appears when the original sounds of Shanghai morph into faster, louder, an more confusing noises. Everything continues to become faster and louder until the tourist finally establishes communication whith the young Chinese man. Then, the moment that communication is truly established, the soundtrack mellows and slows, allowing daily life to continue an an unhurried and reasonable pace. Whe the woman finally arrives back at her starting point, a terminal in Germany, the soundtrack calmly highlights a confidant woman who smilingly notices a tourist moving backwards through the terminal.

Translation Possible would be a useful resource in undergraduate courses on language and communication.“

„...Mit aufwändiger Tricktechnik, viel Tempo und Einfallsreichtum entstand eine Groteske über ein Phänomen unserer Zeit, das unsere Gesellschaft sehr elementar, aber nicht gerade zum besten verändert hat.“

"THE HONEYMOON is the latest work from the constantly creative Susanne Horizon-Franzel. In this charming film two honeymooners take a trip to the Alps, where they commune with nature - including animals and plants that respond to them with communicative sounds. Then they find their love moves mountains ...literally...“

„For her fifteen-minute STEINFLUG (FLIGHT OF THE STONE, 1989), Susanne Horizon-Fränzel used a short of time-lapse process to create the impression the the camera is documenting the movement of an object – a stone that is picked up and thrown in anger, with enough force for it to travel around the world, passing through such countries as Germany, the United States, Japan, Thailand and India. To record the footage, directors of photography Dietmar Ratsch, Juraj Liptak, and Guido Frenzel went to the locations and, using a 16mm Bolex camera, shot one frame of film every few steps they walked. A two-second sequence might have taken an hour or much longer to record, depending on the terrain. When the images are seen at the speed of regular projection, viewers appears to be traveling quickly through space, experiencing the flight from the stone´s point of view.“

„Dies ist es, worum es bei Kurzfilmen geht: Kreativität, Erforschung, und unermüdliche Hingabe“

„Die Filmemacherin nimmt uns mit auf eine magische Reise um die Welt und zeigt, daß die Menschen im Prinzip überall gleich sind. Wir honorieren die Nicht-Zerstörung und die Freundlichkeit des magischen Steins“

In diesem für das diesjährige Sundance Film Festival ausgewählten humorvollen Film, der gleichzeitig Denkanstoß ist, folgen wir einem Stein, der in einem Ausbruch von Wut geworfen wurde, durch viele Länder und Kulturen um die ganze Welt. STEINFLUG ist ein wunderschön aufgenommenes Statement über die Konsequenzen unseres Tuns.

„Dargestellt wird in ausgefallener Kameraführung – die Kamera folgt in rasender Geschwindigkeit dem fliegenden Stein – dass Gewalt überall auf der Erde das friedliche Zusammenleben bedroht und letztlich auf den zurückschlägt, von dem sie ausgegangen ist. Der preisgekrönte Film bezieht seine ungewöhnliche Intensität auch aus dem archaischen und hochgradig symbolischen Charakter des Steins als Waffe und des Steinwurfs als Gewalttat. Er eignet sich bestens zum Einsatz in allen Unterrichtseinheiten zum Thema Gewalt.“

„...auf allen Ebenen von bewundernswerter Qualität ... und in der Musik- und Tonmischung geradezu berauschend...“

„Einer der populärsten Filme des diesjährigen Festivals..“

„Mittels der Magie intelligenten Filmemachens wird der Zuschauer Zeuge des Fluges des Steins, der, geschleudert im Zorn, Einfluß nimmt auf Menschen in jedem Winkel unseren globalen Dorfes“

“In diesem erstaunlichen und unterhaltsamen Kurzfilm reist ein Pflasterstein, im Zorn geworfen, in schnellem Flug um die Welt bevor er zu dem Werfer zurückkehrt. In einer inspirierten Montage aus Realfilmszenen und fantastisch produzierten Einzelbildsequenzen wechseln die Flüge aus der Perspektive des Steins mit Reaktionen von Menschen aus mehr als 6 Ländern. Außer einigen Ausrufen ist dies eine wortlose tour de force, die einem Filmstunt oder einer Achterbahnfahrt ähnelt. Die Szenen kommentieren auf subtile Weise soziale Verhältnisse in der Welt. Dieser vielfach preisgekrönte Film „rocks“ (=Wortspiel mit Rock-Stein, deutsch: „bringt´s“)!

“...STEINFLUG ist eine 15-minütige, superb produzierte Kombination aus Realfilmszenen, Special Effects und Animationsfilm, die besonders junge Menschen anziehen und interessieren wird...sehr empfohlen für Schulen und Gemeinde- Videosammlungen.“

„Intermittent applause is sure to be expected in this six minute film BRAVO PAPA 2040by Susanne Fränzel...“

„Ein äußerst effektvoll gemachter, in seinem Bild-und Montagewitz geradezu und auch im wörtlichen Sinn mitreißender Film...daß dabei zwischen Lachen und Erschrecken der Betrachter wie an einem Gummiband hin- und hergeschnellt wird, gehört mit zu den Elementen, die diesen Film ausmachen...Nicht unvermerkt kann bleiben, daß selbst Vor-und Nachspann geschickt in die Fiktion des Films einbezogen werden.“ Jury-Beurteilung für BRAVO PAPA 2040 2.Wilhelmshavener Maritimen Filmtagen „Der Film ist experimentell in der Form, behandelt jedoch zugleich ein gesellschaftlich wichtiges Thema...er ist komplex in seinen Bildern und Inhalten, aber auch witzig, dabei meisterhaft in seiner Form.“

„Der Film ist experimentell in der Form, behandelt jedoch zugleich ein gesellschaftlich wichtiges Thema...er ist komplex in seinen Bildern und Inhalten, aber auch witzig, dabei meisterhaft in seiner Form.“

“This is the closest thing to a roller-coaster ride on film, provoking the same hysterical laughter and thrills in the audience! A woman is raking hay in her field when a low-flying military jet bursts on the scene. Through a bravura display of film technique the viewer is placed in the cockpit of the jet as it roars at terrifying speeds through even the most private places in the village until it returns once more to the woman... who reacts in the only way she can, from pure instinct. It's a non- verbal commentary on the intrusion of technology into our lives, and specifically the terror caused by low-flying military jets.”

„Frau Fränzel hat Animationsfilmtechniken auf so verblüffende und beeindruckende Weise weiterentwickelt, dass ihre Filme nicht nur aus künstlerischen Gründen weltweit gefragt sind, sondern auch auf Filmschulen und Universitäten für Lehrzwecke und als Anschauungsmaterial verwendet werden. So gilt z.B. ihr Film BRAVO PAPA 2040 bereits als „Klassiker des Animationsfilms...“.

„The six-minute film by Susanne Fränzel entitled BRAVO PAPA 2040 is sure to be a hit...the stirring parable on resistance was swamped with awards.“

„BRAVO PAPA 2040 is the visual implementation or acoustic terror. Susanne Fränzel effectively and originally conveys the feeling of beeing threatened and of all realms of life being occupied through deafening noise of low-flying aircrafts.“

„Susanne Fränzel gibt in ihrem Musik-Clip „Good Things“ mit den maskierten Figuren ein phantasievolles und geheimnisvolles Beispiel für die sich ergänzende Symbiose von Realfilm und farbigen, animierten Zeichnungen.“

„Hat mir Spaß gemacht -vor allem: wie genau ihr den Brüdern zugesehen habt“

„A hell of a time to be expected.“

„Fränzel and Ehmann have produced real entertainment with their productionSISTER GROUCHO...“

„Mit großem Spaß sah der Bewertungsausschuß diesen hervorragend animierten Spuk mit reizvoll dekorierten Fahrradsätteln. Die Stoptricktechnik ist vorzüglich. Mit viel Fantasie und verblüffenden Elementen wurde diese kurze und originelle Geschichte angereichert.“