KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207/7207 - German Film

Orient Express
Theatre Train
Scene from “Orient Express Theatre Train”
(photo © Christian Mueller)
Type of Project Documentary TV Genre Art, Educational,
Music, Theater, Road Movie Production Company
Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg/Ludwigsburg, in co-production
with ZDFtheaterkanal/Mainz, Schauspiel Stuttgart/Stuttgart,
Eyecatch Productions/Saarbruecken & Ludwigsburg Producer
Christian Mueller Directors Martin Andersson, Steffen Duevel
Directors of Photography Steffen Duevel, Inci Uensal Editor
Silvio Herrmann Format XD CAM HD, DigiBeta, color, 16:9,
Stereo Shooting Languages English, Turkish, German,
Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, French Shooting in
Ankara, Istanbul, Bucharest, Craiova, Timisoara, Novi Sad, Zagreb,
Ljubljana, Nova Gorica, Freiburg and Stuttgart, May – July 2009
Contact
Eyecatch Productions
Spichererbergstrasse 71 · 66119 Saarbruecken/Germany
phone +49-71 41-85 61 19 · fax +49-7 21-1 51 22 56 00
email: cmueller@eyecatchproductions.de
www.eyecatchproductions.de
Martin Andersson and Steffen Duevel, both graduates of the
Baden-Wuerttemberg Film Academy in Ludwigsburg, have
just spent two months accompanying a unique international theater
project which followed the route of the legendary Orient Express
train from the Turkish capital of Ankara to Stuttgart in south-west
Germany.
The idea for their documentary Orient Express Theatre Train
(working title) came after they pitched a concept to Christian
Holtzhauer of the Schauspiel Stuttgart.
In one of the three open pitchings per year, Holtzhauer had called on
students at the film academy to submit proposals for films on the subject
of the Orient Express after he won support from the European
Theater Convention for an international collaboration where theater
ensembles from six European countries would perform their plays at
11 different locations in a converted railway carriage during a twomonth
journey from Turkey to Germany.
Following the premiere in their home town, each ensemble travelled
by train to one or even several other cities where it performed again
and met with the next ensemble which, in turn, performed its pre-
miere. In terms of content, the rolling theater train project was
examining ‘European identity’, the expectations of and past experience
with the European unification process, and issues like escape,
expulsion, mobility and settling down.
After beginning in Ankara and Istanbul, the train with its Turkish crew
stopped in Craoiva and Bucharest (Romania), Novi Sad (Serbia),
Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana and Nova Gorica (Slovenia), and, finally,
Freiburg and Stuttgart, with a two-week long festival showing all of
the plays, on its 3,000 kilometer journey.
“One of the biggest challenges on this project is having such an enormous
volume of material [over 80 hours] gathered over 9 weeks,
finding a focus and filtering out those moments which are interesting,”
says producer Christian Mueller, who had previously worked
with co-director Martin Andersson on the live concert visualization
Faust – Auf der Suche and two collaborations with the Stuttgarter
Philharmoniker and ZDFtheaterkanal (La Valse and Der Klangkoerper).
“Having so many protagonists, six theater plays in six countries, and
then only 60 minutes for the final film – it will be really fascinating to
see how that all works in the edit.”
Orient Express Theatre Train was the first collaboration between
Swiss-born Andersson and Duevel who shared the tasks of
director, DoP and sound man on this fly-on-the-wall observation. A
taste of the film's shoot is provided by their daily weblog which they
also produced on the road as they progressed towards Stuttgart:
orientexpressfestival.blogspot.com.
“For the first two weeks, we had the German-Turkish camerawoman
Inci Uensal with us for the shoot in Ankara and Istanbul, which was
very good as she could also help with the translating,” recalls Duevel,
whose early childhood in Tanzania and Ruanda has led him to concentrate
on the issue of human rights in his previous films such as Die
Kinder des Gatarayiha and Unter Nachbarn – Vom Leben mit den
Moerdern.
At times, it was a bit like the Tower of Babel with so many different
nationalities participating. “English and French were the languages we
conversed in, but then everyone of course has their own languages,”
Andersson says. “I think there will be quite a lot of translating to do
later on. We did quite a few interviews, but there were also observations
of conversations where it was better when the people spoke in
their own languages – it's more natural. As time went by, the filming
went really well because the actors got to know us since we were all
travelling together and there was a feeling of trust towards us. We
could just go in with the camera when they were discussing something
and they hardly noticed we were there.”
“It was a constant process of coming and going,” Andersson adds.
“For example, the Turkish actors were with us as far as Novi Sad and
then some flew to Zagreb, the Germans stayed until Romania and
were going to be on stage again in Germany. And the Romanian
actors travelled by bus to join the train's performances in Novi Sad.”
“So, it wasn't like a wandering circus in the classic sense where the
actors are there all the time for the whole journey,” Andersson notes.
The duo will now be involved in the film’s post-production until the
end of this year, when it should be premiered by ZDFtheaterkanal.
Talks about further exploitation of this documentary or even a new
german films quarterly in production
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