Join us for a screening of Maria Schrader's film I'M YOUR MAN (2021), followed by a discussion between author Emma Braslavsky and translator Holly Yanacek.

SCHEDULE:
6:00pm Doors open.
6:30pm Welcoming + Introduction
6:45pm Screening of I'M YOUR MAN + discussion w/ Author Emma Braslavsky + translator Holly Yanacek.
9:30pm End of Event

About the Book

Dr. Alma Felser is a famous couples therapist and one of the last people who still believes that love exists only between real humans. She rejects the comfort of hubot love. When her long-term relationship fails, she secretly orders herself one of these androids, naturally designed to be the ideal partner she always promotes in her articles. At first Alma is intoxicated, but soon she realizes that Tom is the partner she wants, but not the one she needs.

"In a compelling literary form, Emma Braslavsky […] asks to what extent the boundary between human thought and artificial intelligence is beginning to dissolve, especially in an era of radical individualism."
- Christoph Schröder - German TV Channel SWR

About the Film

Alma (Maren Eggert), an accomplished researcher at the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin, leads a team studying ancient cuneiform writing. In order to obtain research funds for her work, she grudgingly agrees to participate in an extraordinary study, one in which she is an experimental variable: For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid android tailored specifically to her unique character and needs. But Alma is unsentimental and skeptical when she meets Tom (Dan Stevens), a robot almost totally indistinguishable from a flesh-and-blood man. Tom’s algorithm is programmed to learn from Alma, so that he may adapt and change to fulfill his programming to become her perfect partner. While he’s a technical marvel created solely to make her happy, his initial attempts are awkward and ridiculous, and Alma is horrified. But his constant analysis of Alma’s reactions allows him to adapt and cater to her real longings. I’m Your Man is a comically romantic tale about the questions of love, longing, and what makes us human.

Germany (2021), 108 min., German with English Subtitles
Director: Maria Schrader, Screenplay: Maria Schrader, Jan Schomburg, Emma Braslavsky, based on Braslavsky’s Die Nacht war bleich, die Lichter blinkten, Cinematography: Benedikt Neuenfels, Cast: Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Hüller, Hans Löw, Wolfgang Hübsch, Production Company: Letterbox Filmproduktion GmbH (Hamburg).

Emma Braslavsky is a writer, curator, and director. The meaning and future of humanity are her main topics. She has published multiple award-winning novels, audio art, art works, and exhibitions, such as the story "Ich bin dein Mensch," a spin-off from the award-winning novel Die Nacht war bleich, die Lichter blinkten (2019), which was nominated for the German Science Fiction Award and was made into a film. She published her fifth novel ,Erdling, in November 2023. She currently lives and works in Berlin.

During her residency, Emma Braslavsky will be working on her novel Gummi (Rubber), which tells Charles Goodyear's vision of the future from the perspective of his two wives, Clarissa Beecher Goodyear and Fanny Wardell Goodyear, thereby putting them and his family front and center. Through this shift in perspective, she hopes to uncover a new facet of what the future is made of. In the U.S., she is currently planning her research on the two women whose influence on her husband's success has so far gone unnoticed.

Dr. Holly Yanacek is associate professor of German at James Madison University. Her scholarship in German literary studies focuses on emotion, narration, gender, care, and posthumanism. She is a former Fulbrighter who still has a metaphorical suitcase in Berlin. Words Without Borders has published her first literary translation of Emma Braslavsky’s short story „The VANISHÄVEN Furniture System: A Demonstration"

An event in collaboration with our partner institution Thomas Mann House and the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.