In the streets of Paris, we accompany two people who actually wanted to say goodbye long ago. Exhale, inhale, exhale. “Is it starting?” – this is how a journey through a day begins that is both farewell and realization. Jana has just undergone a medically induced termination, Aaron is withdrawing. His exchange year is ending, he is leaving. A lost wallet becomes the last excuse to avoid a meeting – but Jana is not willing to be driven away. She insists on accompanying him on a search through the city – a tour that passes not only through places but also through open wounds. Between silent pain, emotional heaviness and almost unbearable misunderstandings, a quiet dynamic unfolds in which a lot is said without being said. The fact that Jana is in a wheelchair remains as obvious as it is meaningless – because this film is not about disability, but about being at eye level.

BY MY SIDE, originally titled À MES CÔTÉS, premiered at the 2024 Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival. Further invitations followed, including to the Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz and the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Director Eric Marcus Weglehner, who already sensitively told a story between emotional maturity and youthful overwhelm with SEKT (2020), once again relies on quiet nuances and great inner conflicts. Dominik Mayer's camerawork interweaves the documentary observations with cinematic clarity – and makes tangible how necessary it is that certain things do not have to be said. A moving piece of Austrian arthouse cinema that unobtrusively combines queer themes, relationship fragility and self-emancipation.