Debut feature 'Oasis' brings three school outcasts to Venice

Three teenagers pushed to the margins run for the woods in Oasis, the debut feature from German-born, Austrian-trained filmmaker Jannis Lenz.

Variety published its review of the film on 12 September 2026, as Lenz's first full-length work stepped onto the festival stage in Venice. The story centres on three ostracised high-schoolers who retreat to the forest around their German hometown.

Florian Geißelmann plays Lukas, Anton Petzold plays Andi and Mathilda Smidt plays Maya, according to Variety. The trio form a tight unit away from school. Their hideout becomes a refuge and a pressure cooker.

The wider crisis starts with a phone screen. A viral video of a student threatening classmates surfaces online and the school spirals into escalating violence, the Venice Biennale synopsis states. That incident frames the teenagers' flight from classrooms into the trees.

Behind the camera, Alexander Dirninger served as cinematographer and co-wrote the screenplay with Lenz, Variety reports. Sound design is by Nora Czamler and Benedikt Palier, with score by Palier. The credits point to a small, close-knit creative team built around image and sound.

The film is listed under its original title, Oase, in the Orizzonti section of Biennale Cinema 2026, according to the Venice Biennale. Orizzonti is Venice's second main competition strand, focused on new forms and emerging directors. The selection places Oasis in the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival at the Lido di Venezia.

On the business side, Totem picked up Oasis ahead of its Venice premiere, Variety reported on 23 July 2026. That type of deal typically covers international sales, finding distributors territory by territory after a festival launch. Wega Film co-produced Oasis as a minority co-production.

Lenz has stayed with difficult material before. He touched on violence, body and identity in earlier work, and Oasis is described as an exploration of those same themes, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 17 August 2026. The Reporter also published an interview with Lenz on 4 September about exclusion and school violence in the film.

For viewers new to the festival circuit, this is the usual path for a debut. A premiere in a strand such as Orizzonti brings press, buyers and programmers together at once, and a sales pickup before the first screening gives the film a team to carry it from the Lido to cinemas elsewhere.