The movie shows a great attention to detail in all aspects. Everything is lovingly crafted, from the hand-built rooms and buildings that took weeks to construct, to the musical score and carefully selected cast.

Like most of the world, Germany is heavily affected by the ongoing cost of living crisis. Inflation, stagnating wages, and sluggish urban development make adequate housing impossible to find for most. In the news, this development is often illustrated with the soaring price of rent per square meter, which in some areas has doubled or tripled in just the past few years. In the public imagination, the square meter is symbolically linked to a decrease in living standards and an increasingly restricted way of life. This gives our effort to reclaim this particular space as a stage for fun and creativity added significance.

A man sleeps in a tiny bedroom, as the enchanting sounds of a tuba player sitting in an adjacent tiny chamber wakes him up. When he gets up, the bed turns and transforms into a tiny bathroom. What kind of house is this? As he goes about his day, we gradually learn the answer: through doors, hatches, and ladders, he moves from room to room, all of which share the same dimensions: he climbs a ladder to water his square mushroom farm, moves from a square restaurant to a square ping-pong table, to a square art room. Finally, he opens a last door leading to a big stage - and earns the applause his ingenuity deserves.

In Germany, HORNBACH has established itself as the hardware store chain for ambitious, large, and joyful projects. But as the cost-of-living crisis hits Europe, fewer and fewer people feel like they have the kind of space that is necessary for big projects. HORNBACH was at risk of becoming irrelevant to urban city-dwellers living in tight, increasingly expensive spaces – by far the biggest and fastest-growing target group in European markets. As the cost-of-living increases, and people pay more money for less space, we need to show that the HORNBACH ethos – creativity, skills, mischief – is still applicable in the homes of potential DIYers today.

The director aimed to convey a realistic experience of what it’s like to live in a world that is limited to rooms no bigger than one square meter. The project demanded the director to look at how we can use space more effectively: Can you combine a shower and bedroom into a single space? Can you reuse the humid steam from a shower to grow mushrooms?

While the rooms feel playful, the direction applies rigorous logic to each space. Sets were carefully constructed to ensure a natural flow from one room and experience to the next. Given that the film was for a large DIY store, it was imperative that the sets felt hand-made and believable to the audience. Ultimately, the director focused on a design of the world that helped audiences understand the idea and the way we adapt to increasingly limited resources.