The rain that is falling now was also falling back then

At the far end of the EU, on the border with Moldova, lies the Botosani prison. This is where inmates Manix, Cristian and Busliuc spend the last years of their sentences before they face the mammoth task of becoming part of society again. Poverty, rejection, loneliness, but also themes such as family and hope are omnipresent. They all had a lot of time to reflect. What does a person need to be happy? Locked between steel and concrete, the answer is hammered into their heads. // Christian Zipfel is a documentary filmmaker and VR director based in Berlin. His first VR work "ROOMS" deals with the philosophy of space. The work celebrated its world premiere at the 75th Venice Film Festival and received the Prix Immersion at the 47th Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma. Shortly afterwards, he made the immersive documentary "The rain that is falling now was also falling back then" and spent four weeks in a Romanian prison during the course of filming. There he portrayed the lives of the prisoners. After award-winning 360 films, Zipfel now works primarily on engine-based VR experiences and gained greater recognition with his work on the "Volumetric Testimony of Holocaust Survivors". In collaboration with the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, he has been recording interviews with Holocaust survivors in a volumetric studio since 2020.