Picobello (aka Alman Schmidt) begins with the best of intentions: the meticulously orderly Schmidt (45) sets out to improve his relationship with his stepdaughter by accompanying her on a harmless errand — buying rabbit litter for her pet. A minor misunderstanding, however, quickly escalates into a situation neither of them is equipped for, landing them in the apartment of Kalle — a queer former drug baroness — who is currently on vacation. She left the illegal world long ago after it led to her wife’s death. Yet her absence is anything but empty. She remains present through phone calls, attempting to impose control on a situation that is already unraveling.

In her place, Nils, a neighbor with more ambition than substance, tries to fill the void — performing the role of a dealer with a certain tragic enthusiasm. What initially plays as comedy gradually exposes something more fragile: a performance of masculinity built on imitation, insecurity, and the need to appear in control.

For directors Daniel Sax and Daniel Knußmann, I approached the set as a condensed psychological portrait. Kalle’s apartment compresses an entire life into a few square meters — traces of East Asian travels, fragments of a queer love story, looted objects, and the remnants of a half-abandoned lab coexist in carefully constructed density. Every object carries weight. Nothing is incidental. Which is precisely why the intrusion of chaos feels so disproportionate — and, at times, darkly comic. The image of this meticulously curated space collapsing into disorder, culminating in a vomit-stained flokati carpet, becomes almost absurd in its specificity.

Despite a limited budget, the set was realized through a high degree of precision and collaboration — from Farbenwerke Meffert to Rio Requisiten in Weimar. The result is a space that doesn’t just host the narrative, but quietly reveals it — through accumulation, contradiction, and the inevitable loss of control.