How does the political orientation of institutions impact the lives of individuals? And how do institutions choose to represent and communicate scientific and historical facts? Through an interconnected web of narratives, these questions frame the diptych "Daphne and Thomas." The first part of the film begins in the swimming pool of Thomas (Thomas Rudnick), a frustrated artist in his late 50s, who was unable to attend art school during the German Democratic Republic. The second part begins when his daughter, Daphne (Tina Pfurr), a young taxidermist, finds herself locked inside one of the dioramas at The Museum of Natural History in Berlin. The stories of Thomas and his daughter, Daphne metamorphose through humidity and dryness, the rising and falling temperatures, reality and its artifice.
