GFQ 2-2007 - german films

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After working together on the omnibus film Lost and Found which opened the Berlinale’s Forum section in 2005, Belgrade-born film - maker Stefan Arsenijevic and German producer Herbert Schwering of COIN Film have collaborated again on the young Serbian director’s feature film debut, the tragicomedy Liebe und andere Verbrechen (“Love and Other Crimes”) which wrapp ed at the end of March. The film is the first production by Herbert Schwering with his new company COIN Film (formerly ICON Film). Expectations are running high after Arsenijevic’s numerous short films, including (A)torsion from 2003 which won the European Film Award, a Berlin Golden Bear and a nomination for the Academy Award’s Best Fiction Short category. “I feel quite different,” says Arsenijevic about the transition from short to a feature-length shoot. “The whole shooting will be as many days I had for my shorts, it feels strange and it’s like I am running a marathon!” “Liebe und andere Verbrechen is about a woman who is not satisfied with her life in contemporary Serbia and decides to steal some money and escape from the country forever,” Arsenijevic explains. “The film follows her over the course of this last day from morning to evening. In the evening, she is supposed to steal the money and leave and we see her meeting people who were part of her life; she is now able to take some small acts of revenge and tell them what she really thought of them, to leave some presents and make a quiet departure from her imperfect life. But, then on that very day – since life is not easy and simple – a boy from the neighborhood who is more than ten years younger tells her that he is in love with her and their relationship develops during this day. At the end of the day, she will have to de cide what she is going to do.” “In a way, the film deals with the Serbia of today and will give us a picture of the life of the main character and the situation and feeling in Serbia nowadays,” he continues. “It also looks at one topic which is really important here and that is of emigration: in the last 15 years because of the war and so on, 300,000 people left Serbia and it is mainly young people who went. This is so present in our lives and everyone of us knows someone who left. As a young person, you keep asking yourself whether you should go or not. I had an urge to deal with this issue and show how hard it is to make this decision.” As Arsenijevic points out, it would “usually be hard to make a co-production on such a movie because it is so very much based in the neigh borhood of New Belgrade where I grew up. It is very, very local even though there is a universal story. I see it as a very intimate film and, in a way, it is my Amarcord.” Nevertheless, his feature debut has been structured as a co-production between Germany, Serbia, Austria and Slovenia for the financing of the €1.43 million budget and drew its cast and crew from the four countries. “I shot almost all of my short films here, but I had the feel - ing that I lost my objective view of the space,” Arsenijevic explains. “So, my idea was to invite the DoP (Simon Tansek from Slovenia) and production designer (Volker Schaefer from Germany) from outside to come and see things objectively. This really helped me because they have a similar taste as I do and we were going through New Belgrade together and seeing things afresh through their eyes.” The central role of Anica who is planning to turn her back on her homeland is played by Anica Dobra (equally familiar to audiences in Serbia and Germany thanks to her appearances in Doris Doerrie’s Am I Beautiful? and Enlightenment Guaranteed as well as Srdan Golubovic’s 2007 Berlinale film The Trap), while the part of her young admirer Stanislav is taken by Vuk Kostic (star of Golubovic’s 2001 drama Absolute Hundred), with other roles cast with veteran Serbian actress Milena Dravic and the young German actress Hanna Schwamborn (Good Bye, Lenin!). Meanwhile, the international flavor is continued behind the camera: production designer Volker Schaefer, who, among other things, creat - ed the sets at Cologne’s MMC Studios for Amelie from Montmartre, brought his art department team to Belgrade; Veronika Albert, sister of filmmaker Barbara Albert, is serving as co-costume designer, with NRW-based Georg Nonnenmacher (whose recent credits include The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Paradise Now) as gaffer, and Hamburg-based editor Andrew Bird (Head-On) coming to Cologne to work on the edit over the coming months. MB Lulu und Jimi Type of Project Feature Film Cinema Genre Love Story, Music, Road Movie, Pop Art Production Company sperl + schott film/Munich, in cooperation with BR/Munich, WDR/Cologne, NDR/Hamburg, ARTE/Strasbourg With backing from Filmstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Mitteldeutsche Medienfoerderung Producers Gabriela Sperl, Uwe Schott Director Oskar Roehler Screenplay Oskar Roehler Director of Photography Wedigo von Schultzendorff Editor Bettina Boehler Music by Martin Todsharow Production Design Eduard Krajewski Principal Cast Ray Fearon, Teresa Weissbach, Katrin Sass, Rolf Zacher, Udo Kier, Bastian Pastewka, Georg Friedrich Casting Nina Haun Casting Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85, Dolby SR Shooting Language German Shooting in Thueringer Wald, Rheinland, July – September 2007 German Distributor X Verleih/Berlin World Sales Beta Cinema / Dept. of Beta Film GmbH Andreas Rothbauer Gruenwalder Weg 28 d · 82041 Oberhaching/Germany phone +49-89-67 34 69 80 · fax +49-89-6 73 46 98 88 email: ARothbauer@betacinema.com www.betacinema.com Oskar Roehler’s next film Lulu und Jimi will be the first feature project coming from the new company sperl + schott film set up last year by Bavarian Television’s former TV drama chief Gabriela Sperl and producer Uwe Schott, formerly managing director of Allmedia Pictures. german films quarterly in production 2 · 2007 38 Gabriele Sperl, Oskar Roehler
However, Roehler and Sperl are not strangers to one another: during her time at the TV drama department in Munich, Sperl had been the commissioning editor for Angst (Der alte Affe Angst) and collaborated with him on the screenplay for Agnes and his brothers (Agnes und seine Brueder). “The idea for Lulu und Jimi comes from Oskar Roehler,” Sperl stresses, pointing out that she is “particularly keen in this film to look beyond the level of the Romeo and Juliet story and portray a Germany of racial prejudice and narrow-mindedness in the 1950s. At the center is a family of the Economic Miracle, which rejects every - thing that doesn’t fit in with its view on life. I think you will find that one can see several levels to this film. It is a typical ‘Oskar Roehler story’, he is really in his element with this family story which has that cruel twist which is so ‘Oskar’, but it is also a modern fairytale with a rock’n’roll pop art world, wild and full of color.” “It is the story of an impossible love affair,” she continues, “and of a conflict between a mother and daughter: the mother sees that her former beauty is slipping away and begrudges her daughter any happi - ness of her own.” While recent period pieces in German cinema have concentrated on the years in the nation’s history between 1933 and 1945, Sperl be - lieves that “a lot of films will start coming through in the future about the 50s because it shows us how Germany was reconstructed on a Nazi past that was not reflected upon, a fact which led to the student uprisings in the 60s and ultimately to the terrorism of the RAF. I think it is an extremely exciting and fascinating time – I am myself working on a screenplay set in the 50s – because there was so much suppress - ed.” While an eclectic cast has been brought together for the film with the likes of Katrin Sass, Udo Kier, Rolf Zacher, Bastian Pastewka and Georg Friedrich, casting of the two lovers fighting against all odds has been particularly imaginative. The role of Lulu will be taken by the young German actress Teresa Weissbach who made her film debut at the age of 17 in a headturn ing performance in Leander Haussmann’s comedy Sun Alley (Sonnenallee) and followed this up with a role in Catharina Deus’ acclaimed film About a Girl (Die Boxerin). Meanwhile, Jimi will be played by the Royal Shakespeare Company actor Ray Fearon who, in addition to his stage work, also appear - ed in the British soap opera Coronation Street and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and was a contestant on the BBC’s Saturday night show Strictly Come Dancing. The project, which is scheduled to shoot in the Thuringian Forest and North Rhine-Westphalia from July, and will be released in Germany by X Verleih. According to Sperl, she is currently in negotiations with English and French production partners to possibly come onboard the project as co-producers. MB Short Cut to Hollywood Type of Project Feature Film Cinema Genre Road Movie, Tragicomedy, Black Comedy Production Companies Schiwago Film/Berlin, Bavaria Pictures/Geiselgasteig, Muxfilm/Pentling, Bavaria Film/Geiselgasteig, in co-production with Capture Film Inter - national/Los Angeles, Artdeluxe/Vienna With backing from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmfoerderungsanstalt (FFA), BKM, German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), Kuratorium junger deutscher Film Producers Marcos Kantis, Marcus Mittermeier, Jan Henrik Stahlberg, Philipp Kreuzer, Dr. Matthias Esche Co- Producers Andrea Balen, Corina Danckwerts, Robert Hofferer Directors Marcus Mittermeier, Jan Henrik Stahlberg Screenplay Jan Henrik Stahlberg Director of Photography David Hofmann Editors Sarah Clara Weber, Stine Munch Music by Rainer Oleak Production Design Peter Naguib Principal Cast Jan Henrik Stahlberg, Marcus Mittermeier, Christoph Kottenkamp, Marta McGonagle, Henning Gruebel Casting Astrid Rosenfeld Format HDV, transfer to 35 mm, color, 1:1.78, Dolby Shooting Language German Shooting in New York, Emporia, Lynchburg, Orlando, Miami, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Berlin, February – April 2007 German Distributor Senator Film Verleih/Berlin World Sales Bavaria Film International Dept. of Bavaria Media GmbH · Thorsten Schaumann Bavariafilmplatz 8 · 82031 Geiselgasteig/Germany phone +49-89-64 99 26 86 · fax +49-89-64 99 37 20 email: international@bavaria-film.de www.bavaria-film-international.com After Quiet as a Mouse, which was shown in the 2004 Berlinale’s Perspectives German Cinema section after winning the Max Ophuels Award, Short Cut to Hollywood is the second collaboration between Marcus Mittermeier and Jan Henrik Stahlberg. The duo co-directs and appears in front of the camera, and Stahlberg is also serving as screenwriter. According to one of the film’s producers, Philipp Kreuzer of Bavaria Pictures, Short Cut to Hollywood “is a combi - nation of a road movie, black comedy and media satire and has the same kind of approach to the screenplay and concept that the duo Stahlberg/Mittermeier had followed successfully in Quiet as a Mouse. They have a screenplay, but efficiently use the room for creativity and improvisation.” german films quarterly in production 2 · 2007 39 Christoph Kottenkamp, Jan Henrik Stahlberg, Marcus Mittermeier (photo © Bavaria Pictures/Stefan Falke)
Page 1 and 2: German Films Quarterly 2 · 2007 AT
Page 3 and 4: OF THE Cannes Film Festival 2007 60
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Page 7 and 8: That is Next Generation’s drawing
Page 9 and 10: Scene from “Rocks” programmers
Page 11 and 12: like to see implemented. And the mi
Page 13 and 14: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? A selection of
Page 15 and 16: NEXT GENERATION 1998 - 2007 Next Ge
Page 17 and 18: NEXT GENERATION 2007 A Selection of
Page 19 and 20: In spite of the ups and downs durin
Page 21 and 22: Watch her shorts and you’ll know
Page 23 and 24: Similarly, Stefan Tolz was a gradua
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Page 27 and 28: M. Wiedemann, U. Muehe, Q. Berg, S.
Page 29 and 30: FFF Bayern’s Dr. Klaus Schaefer,
Page 31 and 32: GERMAN ANIMATIONS IN ANNECY For the
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Page 35 and 36: Moreover, the venture will also be
Page 37: World Sales Beta Cinema / Dept. of
Page 41 and 42: offering to sleep with women via th
Page 43 and 44: Die Anruferin THE CALLING GAME “P
Page 45 and 46: Autopiloten AUTOPILOTS Autopilots t
Page 47 and 48: Dos Patrias Cuba y la noche TWO HOM
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Page 55 and 56: Mikrofan Sam is a rapper, so are hi
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Page 61 and 62: Prater Vienna’s Prater is an amus
Page 63 and 64: Der Rote Elvis THE RED ELVIS On the
Page 65 and 66: Die Wilden Huehner und die Liebe WI
Page 67 and 68: GERMAN FILMS SHAREHOLDERS & SUPPORT
Page 69 and 70: ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN FILM EXPORTER
Page 71 and 72: Walter Brus Phone +49-(0)89-3809-17
Page 73 and 74: 7 GERMAN FILMS PREVIEWS 2007 12 - 1
Page 75 and 76: FOREIGN REPRESENTATIVES IMPRINT Arg

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