Cast
Nadja
Nadja likes to explore new things before she has worked out all the details. She looks for the truth in the world and the people around her, and can captivate with her stories. She finds Carl and the other companions of a camping trip interesting, although she may not yet have figured out what she is looking for. Toward the end of the movie, she works as a journalist.
The role includes a kiss with Carl while swimming in the lake.
- Playing age
- 20–26
- Language
- Good conversational English. You do not need to be a native speaker.
- Filming
- Summer 2027
- Days
- Around 15 days
- Where
- Northern/Eastern Europe
- Pay
- From €175 per shooting day
- Expenses
- Travel and accommodation are covered
All six principal roles include outdoor scenes in forest and by a lake, swimming, and evening scenes around a campfire.
Audition sides
The scenes below have been prepared for self-tapes. You can record them on a phone and add the link to the application form below.
Side 1: Breakfast
Lines of other participants: Carl (12), Sonja (2)
Setup. The first morning of a camping weekend at a remote lake. Six university friends have hiked in to film the lake for a group project: a world model, a navigable 3D version of a real place. Nadja is up early with Sonja, cooking pancakes in Carl’s frying pan. On the walk in, she teased Carl about their last trip here, when she went out at night with a flashlight to check on a “bear” and he followed her with that pan. He has brought it again. The night before, Peter explained backpropagation at the campfire: a neural network makes a guess, measures how wrong it was, and sends the error backward so it does better next time. Nadja is sure she knows a shorter way home. For more context, read the extended synopsis.
EXT. CAMP — MORNING
Mist on the lake. Nadja is crouched beside the stove, trying to turn a pancake with a spoon. Sonja sits beside her, in a sleeping bag pulled up to her armpits. Carl comes over barefoot from his tent.
CARL That’s my pan.
NADJA You brought it for me.
Carl doesn’t argue. He pours himself a coffee and sits down.
Nadja points across the lake.
NADJA When we leave, we should take the path on the other side. It’s shorter.
CARL That’s where we got lost last time.
NADJA We missed a turn. If we take the turn, it’s shorter.
CARL You were very sure last time too.
NADJA I know where the turn is now.
He gives her a doubtful look. She laughs. Sonja interjects:
SONJA Tell him about when you got your high-school teacher to call the police.
NADJA I got three people lost on a school trip once. We were supposed to meet our teacher at this museum after lunch. I’d been there before, so I said I’d take them.
CARL Fair enough.
NADJA With my parents. When I was six.
Carl pauses.
CARL Well. They don’t usually move museums.
NADJA Exactly. That’s what I thought. I remembered these big steps outside. So I picked a street that looked familiar and started walking. Kept telling them we were nearly there.
CARL Once they’re following you, you can’t start hesitating. You’ve pointed. People are depending on you.
NADJA Thank you. I wasn’t going to let them down by wavering. One of the girls kept asking if I was sure, which wasn’t helping.
CARL Had she been to the museum?
NADJA No.
CARL Right. Then I’m not sure what she was contributing.
Nadja smiles and hands him the spoon.
NADJA So we kept going. I was still looking for the steps. And when I saw the burger place where we’d had lunch, I steered us into an alley before anyone noticed.
CARL Why were they still following you?
NADJA My leadership abilities… and the fun along the way. We popped into shops, watched street performers and looked at the architecture. And every time we got it wrong, I knew another way not to go. Like that backpropagation thing. You have to do the forward pass first.
Carl and Sonja laugh and nod.
SONJA You need something to correct.
NADJA By the time we finally found the museum, our teacher was on the phone to the police. Unfortunately, she didn’t know about backpropagation.
CARL If only she’d known.
NADJA She’d have congratulated me. So anyway, we definitely need to take that shorter path on the way back.
CARL Definitely. We know about backpropagation.
Carl laughs into his coffee. Sonja reaches between them and lifts the pan off the stove. They both look down at the blackened pancake.
CARL That one’s mine.
Side 2: The newsroom
Lines of other participants: Camera operator (8), Shopkeeper (7)
Setup. A year or two after university. Nadja works as a video journalist. There have been several protests around the city, and some viral clips seem to show a large crowd gathering outside a suburban station. Before anyone goes out to film it, Nadja wants to know whether the clips are real. At university she built a world model of a lake with her friends, so she knows how images like these can be made. For more context, read the extended synopsis.
INT. NEWSROOM — LATE AFTERNOON
Nadja sits at a desk with two screens. Four clips play side by side: a crowd with banners outside a suburban station, filmed on four different phones. Her colleague, the CAMERA OPERATOR, pulls up a chair beside her.
Nadja compares the clips. The station and surrounding buildings look remarkably convincing.
CAMERA OPERATOR Who posted them?
NADJA Four accounts. Two of them made this week.
CAMERA OPERATOR It looks real.
NADJA They all look real.
She opens archived street-view imagery of the square to check the location. She drags slowly through the panorama: the station entrance, a bus shelter, a row of shops, a cyclist in a yellow jacket with a blue box over the rear wheel. She drags on past him. Then she stops, and goes back.
She scrubs through one of the viral clips and freezes it. Behind the crowd, by the bus shelter, is the same cyclist: the same posture, the same wheel angle, the same folds in his jacket. She puts the two images side by side.
CAMERA OPERATOR He’s in both.
NADJA He isn’t at the protest. He’s in the map.
CAMERA OPERATOR When’s the map from?
NADJA (checking) The street view is from over a year ago. (to herself as much as to him) They used the street view as the world. Then they put the crowd in on top. And he came with the world.
CAMERA OPERATOR So it’s fake.
NADJA It’s fake.
She sits back.
NADJA There’s probably nobody there at all. Someone made it at their kitchen table.
CAMERA OPERATOR I’ll tell the desk.
NADJA Wait. Let’s call someone there.
By now it is early evening. Her colleague finds a small shop facing the square in the panorama, looks up its number and calls on speakerphone. Nadja does the talking.
SHOPKEEPER Hello?
NADJA Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m a journalist. Is there a protest outside your shop?
SHOPKEEPER A protest? Hold on.
Footsteps. A door opens, and the noise of the street comes through the speaker.
SHOPKEEPER Well, there are a few people out there now. Some of them have signs.
NADJA How many?
SHOPKEEPER Twenty. Thirty, maybe. More are coming out of the station.
NADJA Oh, they’re coming in now?
SHOPKEEPER Looks like it. A woman showed me one of those videos at lunch and asked where the protest was. There was nothing. It was completely calm.
NADJA When did people start arriving?
SHOPKEEPER Not long ago. I’ve been in the back most of the afternoon. Do you want to see? I can film it for you.
NADJA Yes, please. Just from the door is fine.
SHOPKEEPER Give me a minute.
They end the call. The camera operator looks at the crowd frozen on Nadja’s screen.
CAMERA OPERATOR They’re turning up because of this?
NADJA And now they’ll film it themselves.
Her phone buzzes. The shopkeeper’s video: the square from his doorway, a crowd with signs, many of them holding up their phones, filming. Nadja puts it beside the viral clip. The two are starting to look alike.
CAMERA OPERATOR I’ll get the car.
Nadja doesn’t get up yet. She looks at the cyclist on her screen.