"I don’t usually see myself as disabled, but the reality is different!"
As part of the "Menschen Hautnah" ("People in Close-Up") TV series, Niko von Glasow cheerfully confronts his disability, caused by the drug thalidomide. He recruits eleven fellow thalidomiders for the courageous project of being photographed naked for a calendar. In this way they meet head-on the public gaze to which they are constantly subjected: Look at us!
In conversations with his parents, his brother and his schoolteacher, Niko awakens moving memories from his childhood and youth. At home on the sofa, his son points out "how funny he’d look with long arms". On a spiritual journey to the Himalayas, Niko meets a Tibetan lama who discusses his disability from a Buddhist perspective.
Huge prints of the twelve naked photographs are displayed in front of Cologne Cathedral. Niko von Glasow and the other models are intrigued to see how the public will react.
A film by and with Niko von Glasow as director, father, nude model and man with short arms.