On the ground at Berlin International Film Festival, writer and academic Naemi Victoria catches Kilian Armando Friedrich powerful debut into drama.
Heike is in a rush. There is too much to do and too little time. ‘I understand your displeasure,’ she assures a dissatisfied customer in the monotonous tone of countless repetitions. Customer service is only one of the many tasks she juggles as a cleaning manager. She deals with clients, her boss, their team, covers shifts for others… the list goes on.
I Understand Your Displeasure throws audiences into the hectic world of Germany’s largest service sector: the cleaning industry. Like thousands of others, Heike’s job is essential for maintaining our everyday infrastructures – from offices and schools to hospitals – but receives very little recognition. With his first fictional feature, director Kilian Armando Friedrich challenges this. The film spotlights Heike’s day to day as a cog in an invisible machine that is set up for failure. Subcontractors, low wages and poor pay turn the cleaning sector into a high pressure/low reward environment.
Heike constantly navigates opposing interests. Her boss wants more clients, the clients lower prices, and her team better pay. There is little else that fills her days, and even less time to consider her own wellbeing. With every task she shoulders, more pressure weighs down on her. Sabine Thalau, who makes her acting debut as Heike, captures the severity of these circumstances with a performance that is equally compassionate as it is compelling. As Heike, she carries the film’s narrative. Wherever she goes, the camera follows. It never lets her out of sight. Relying exclusively on diegetic sound, the film draws attention to the cracks in Heike’s professional composure. Below its surface lies an ocean of exhaustion that threatens to swallow her whole. Sooner rather than later, she faces a crucial choice: taking a break or letting work break her.
The subject matter of I Understand Your Displeasure is grounded in the realm of reality. ‘I never stop researching,’ director Kilian Armando Friedrich tells me, ‘reality always changes.’ Having previously worked on documentaries, with this film he collaborated with two co-writers, Tünde Sautier and Daniel Kunz, and produced a script that acts out and reacts to the lived experiences of people in this sector. Much like the recent works of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty, its story foregrounds an individual’s struggle against the crushing weight of an unjust system. Different to its British cinematic relatives, however, I Understand Your Displeasure opts for a more observational mode. It documents rather than dramatises.
Many realist works explore the fatal consequences of social inequality. Few imagine positive change. By hinting at the power of organised labour, I Understand Your Displeasure stands out from the crowd. Albeit cautiously, this film offers a taste of what improved working conditions might look like and taps into the political potential of rediscovering community.
I Understand Your Displeasure premiered on Friday, 13th February 2026 in the Panorama section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
