The Last Bar
At Firlefanz Films, everything began with a bar.
Yep, you read that right. Before there was a studio, there was The Last Bar — the diploma film that Louis and Arne made together at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. It was our graduation project. It also was the moment we realized we actually wanted to do this — and found a studio together. The Last Bar is where Firlefanz Films was born.
The film tells the story of Melvin, who gets kicked out on his 21st birthday and finds himself on the edge of a cliff, haunted by his inner demons and dark thoughts. But just before the edge of everything, he stumbles into The Last Bar — a wonderfully strange little place full of misfits who all ended up there for the same reasons. Through unexpected conversations and a few uncomfortable confrontations, Melvin slowly begins to face himself. By the time dawn breaks, something has shifted. His thoughts of ending things have faded — and he decides to stick around a little longer.
It’s a quiet film. Inspired by classic cinema and a shared obsession with human behavior, we wanted to tell a story about loneliness, connection, and how fragile life can really be. We didn’t want to explain things — we wanted you to feel them.
Built by Hand. Every Single Bit of It.
Everything you see in it actually exists. Every puppet, every prop, every scratched-up barstool — all built by hand. That’s not a stylistic choice we made lightly. It’s at the very core of what Arne believes animation can be: tangible, textured, real.
The puppets were crafted with an almost obsessive attention to detail — worn fabrics, expressive faces, the kind of subtle realism that makes you forget you’re watching a 20cm-tall figure on a miniature set. And the bar itself? We built that thing down to the last detail. Dim lighting, scuffed wood, the general feeling that a hundred complicated evenings had already happened there before Melvin ever walked in.
That’s the magic of stop-motion!
People Seemed to Notice.
We were thrilled when The Last Bar started making its way through the festival circuit. The film picked up multiple awards and nominations internationally, including the Young Directors Award (YDA), where Arne was recognized for his directing.
It was shown at festivals and industry platforms around the world, and the response — to the story, the craft, the atmosphere — meant everything to us.
“Fearlessly sophisticated in its animation, obsessively detailed in every aspect of its design, and almost self-sacrificial in its production—considering the immense workload of stop-motion filmmaking—the filmmakers around Arne Hain, Svenja Weber, Theresa Worm, Torben Hensel, and Louis Wick present a visually striking, cinematically powerful, and dramaturgically highly unconventional debut. The Last Bar draws us deep into an existential carousel of characters on the big screen, populated by mysterious yet deeply endearing figures. The result is bold, untamed, and profoundly impressive cinematic passion. This is Sturm und Drang. This is dreaming with open eyes. Please, more of this. Much more.”
*translation from german, Jury of Baden-Württembergischer Filmpreis 2023
So, What’s Next?
The Last Bar was just the beginning — and we mean that literally.
We’re currently developing a series of new short films set in the same world, expanding the stories and characters introduced in the film. The bigger dream? An omnibus film: a collection of interconnected stories that dig deeper into the universe of The Last Bar and bring in new voices, new perspectives, new misfits finding their way to that little bar at the edge of everything.
We can’t wait to show you what’s coming.