From the director/writer of Barbara (2012) and Undine (2020).
A small holiday house by the Baltic sea. The days are hot and it hasn't rained in weeks. Four young people come together, friends old and new. As the parched forests around them begin to ignite, so do their emotions. Happiness, lust and love; but also jealousies, resentments and tensions. Meanwhile the forests burn. And before long, the flames are there.
"Petzold tries to take the air out of a pompous windbag, and more often than not succeeds to delightful and caustic effect." - Indiewire
"Arguably lighter Petzold than usual, but still bears the unmistakeable stamp of his intellectual and conceptual elegance." - Screen International
"'Afire' doesn’t play with narrative forms and its references are the here-and-now; it surprises in ways that feel right each time, and it quietly builds to a thoroughly unexpected, heart-wrenching finale." - The Film Verdict