KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207/7207 - German Film
KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207/7207 - German Film
KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207/7207 - German Film
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Niko von Glasow (photo courtesy of Palladio <strong>Film</strong>)<br />
DIRECTOR’S PORTRAIT<br />
Niko von Glasow was born in 1960 in Cologne into<br />
a “<strong>German</strong>-Jewish intellectual family”. He started his<br />
career with Rainer Werner Fassbinder at the Actors<br />
Studio New York, work ed as his production assistant<br />
and then with various film distributors, studios and fes -<br />
tivals. He trained as a director at the film academy in<br />
Lodz/Poland. While he still has a base in Cologne, von<br />
Glasow also moved to London 12 years ago to pursue<br />
his dream of making English-language films. Niko von<br />
Glasow’s films include: Wedding Guests<br />
(Hochzeitsgaeste, 1990), Marie’s Song (Maries<br />
Lied, 1994), Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweiss -<br />
piraten, 2004), Schau mich an (TV, 2007) and<br />
NoBody’s Perfect (2008), which recently won the<br />
<strong>German</strong> <strong>Film</strong> Award 2009 for Best Documentary. He is<br />
also a member of BAFTA and the European <strong>Film</strong><br />
Academy.<br />
Contact:<br />
Palladio <strong>Film</strong> GmbH + Co KG<br />
Boisseréestrasse 3 · 50674 Cologne/<strong>German</strong>y<br />
phone +49-2 21-2 40 66 14 · fax +49-2 21-2 40 67 10<br />
email: info@palladiofilm.com · www.palladiofilm.com<br />
SHAKING AND STIRRING<br />
A portrait of Niko von Glasow<br />
First you have to find von Glasow’s house – “It’s nr. 14, but the red nr.<br />
14, not the white one!” Then sort out the laptop, assume the position<br />
(him at the desk, me on the sofa) and... you’re off on a roller-coaster<br />
ride of free association, leaps of imagination and trains of thought<br />
leading to all kinds of destinations. Meet Niko von Glasow, awardwinning<br />
writer-producer-director and genuine never-a-dull-moment!<br />
In his own words, von Glasow is “a <strong>German</strong>-Jewish-Buddhist, dis -<br />
abled, film producer living in London! I’m difficult! You don’t hire diffi -<br />
cult!” He continues, laughing: “But I want a job and maybe you should<br />
not write that! Or that I’m difficult! Truth is, there are two souls in my<br />
breast: I’ve succeeded in becoming a filmmaker with a signature but I<br />
also dream of becoming an ordinary director making good films, like<br />
ET. I would love to have made The Witness with Harrison Ford, about<br />
the Amish, its simple filmmaking, actors with a brilliant script. That’s<br />
my big dream.”<br />
“The problem of filmmaking,” von Glasow explains, “is you have to<br />
find the edge between something commercial and highly artistic. You<br />
have to, as a filmmaker, try to find it without compromising any of the<br />
vision. One of the problems in <strong>German</strong>y is that you’re either pushed<br />
into the commercial or art corner. It is very difficult to convince<br />
people you can do both and you need both. I am living outside this<br />
world of subsidized filmmaking thinking. I don’t live in this cloud<br />
where the only train of thought is how to get the subsidies. I am living<br />
in a ’normal’ world and the English-speaking film world is much<br />
harsher and reminds you of the reality of the international market all<br />
the time.”<br />
He then pays tribute to one of the respected names in the inter -<br />
national film market, HanWay: “For my intellectual stimulation, brain -<br />
storming, I go there. Stefan Mahlmann is my favorite guy there. He’s<br />
one of the partners. Lovely guy, <strong>German</strong> by the way. He’s very professional<br />
and very kind.”<br />
Getting into the film business by “walking into Bavaria Studios and<br />
asking which way to make films!” von Glasow ended up with<br />
Fassbinder. “By luck, and I didn’t even know who he was! I only realiz<br />
ed much later what a blessing that was! I learned from him that<br />
warmth is the most important quality a director has to have – he was<br />
a real dangerous bastard, especially at the end of his career, but at the<br />
same time he was a very warm and kind person, and this warmth can<br />
be felt in all his films. It’s important to say he was a bastard, but that<br />
doesn’t preclude him being a warm one!”<br />
Deciding he wanted to learn more about acting, von Glasow went to<br />
Jean Jacques Arnaud and the self-confessed “worst actor in the world”<br />
was hired for five weeks to play a monk alongside Sir Sean Connery<br />
in The Name of the Rose: “I was right. I’m really an awful actor and they<br />
cut me out entirely!” So off he went to the Actors Studio in New<br />
german films quarterly director’s portrait<br />
3 · 2009 6