Every ten years in Oberammergau, Jesus Christ's history of suffering is shown in several hours of passion – Alison Kuhn only needs a few minutes. In her first feature film, the director, also known for the direction of the eighth season of the “Druck” youth series, puts the implementation of the Passion of Christ with a prominent German-Danish ensemble (UA Jens Albinus, Lars Brygmann and Christopher Læssø). It not only links her own observations from the Catholic Church and the village life together, but also humorously takes the theater company on the grain.
In her fictional long film debut, the Berliner describes the avant -garde theater scene so apt that the topicality has long since caught up. In mid-May 2025, as part of the ceremony “1250 years Westphalia”, half-naked actors laid chicken in front of the church altar of the Paderborn cathedral how dolls dance and sang “meat is meat” (freely after opus' 80s one hit wonder “Life is life”) as a comment on factory farming and peasant protests. The frozen chicken wore baby diapers, the actors wide skirts and scythes. NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, patron and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Archbishop Udo Markus Bentz sat in the first row of bizarre art performance “Westfalen Side Story” from the Bodytalk group. After the “scandal in the cathedral”, over 20,000 conservative votes called for a new consecration of the deteriorated cathedral.
The passion games in Winteringen in Swabia are a lot – but certainly not Bible faithfully!
Alison Kuhn opened “Holy Meat“Similarly provocative. A sacred” Kyrie Eleison “follows a redemption rave in SM clothes in the strobe ore light including blood, prophetin with sausage chain (Amelie Gerdes) and a grunting pig in a moving UFO. The butcher wears a meat costume on the DJ desk. Later, an old man in Nikolausmitra (bishop's hat) walks around on stage with a plastic penis attached to his bishop's rod. Anyone who flees the best after the first scene choreographed by dance star Eric Gauthier misses the best – because the way to this debacle is incredibly fun and it is much more than a satirical company.
With angel tongues, Father Iverson (Jens Albinus) persuades his superiors to have Denmark transferred to rural Winteringen. As soon as they arrive in the Swabian village, he learns that the parish is about to be built in neighboring Sommeringen shortly before it is incorporated. But IVERSON is resourceful and gets the extension of his stay. He promises a huge theater spectacle with an internationally successful director and thus hits the mark, because the Archbishop (Lars Brygmann) is a great theater fan. If he likes the piece, Winteringen gets enough money so that Iverson can stay.
At some point it is tremendous
From then on, Iverson does everything possible to ensure that the lay performance of the “Passion of Christ” is a complete success. It even makes it acquisition on the deathbed. Unfortunately, this does not turn out to be a good idea. Metzger daughter Mia (Homa Faghiri) therefore has such an anger on Iverson that she even nailed a sow on the cross. Also not a good idea: With Roberto (Pit Bukowski), Iverson brings a director to the village who has no plan of religion and was hunted with Virtue and shame from the capital. In Winteringen he now dares to start a new beginning. When Mia interferes in Roberto's piece, Iverson also slips control – but he will experience that far too late. There is nothing more biblically.
In the form of a triptych (with prologue and epilog), Alison Kuhn takes a look at the pastor, the butcher and the theater director. Although narrative repetitions cannot be avoided, but the almost two hours of “Holy Meat” are quite entertaining. With every perspective, Alison Kuhn, who also wrote the script, draws a loving picture of the village community, in which – not only in the newly created adult disco – it tremendously human. Matthias Reisers camera remains empathetic close to the characters, but Kuhn also affects exaggerations. There is definitely more than a cross in the church community room, the parish usually consists of no more than five people with different motifs – and a quota Christian (Jeremias Meyer) is also included. It was the starting point of Alison Kuhn's satire “Holy Meat”, which – as you can find out later – has a serious background and thus provides brave and amusing explosives.
Conclusion: Alison Kuhn's “Holy Meat” is a cheeky, Christian -inspired provincial comedy. Nobody has to be Bible -proof here.
We saw “Holy Meat” at the Munich Film Festival in 2025, where the film celebrated its world premiere in the “New German Cinema” series.