Quarterly 4 · 2009 - German Films

she explains, “but moreover he ensures for the connection between
the individual protagonists.”
It is via these people that viewers gain insights into the film’s guiding
theme: what is happening outside Europe? “These are individuals,
each one wanting the same things from life that we do, and not some
broad, mass storming of our continent,” Fassbender says.
The protagonists in Fremd, whilst individuals in their own right,
reflect the 18 million people who are currently in migration, giving up
one place to move to another. Fassbender was able to win her protagonists’
confidence due to her long and painstaking research, as well
as Fremd’s long shooting period.
It is their flight, waiting in limbo and unexpected situations that determine
the film’s rhythm, just as does the reality of the routes these
refugees from poverty and oppression take. They and their living conditions
stand for Africa’s transformation and the situation at Europe’s
gates.
“It is my intention that the viewers will get to know these people as
people, not as statistics,” Fassbender explains. “And that which is
‘foreign’ becomes, through this knowledge, less so.
SK
Fruehlings Erwachen
Type of Project TV Movie Genre Coming-of-Age Story, Drama,
Theater Production Company teamWorx Television &
Film/Potsdam, for ZDFtheaterkanal/Mainz Producers Christian
Rohde, Jean-Young Kwak Commissioning Editors Wolfgang
Bergmann, Meike Klingenberg Director Nuran David Calis
Screenplay Nuran David Calis, adapted from the play by Frank
Wedekind Director of Photography Bjoern Knechtel Editor
Simon Blasi Music by Vivan Bhatti Production Design Susanne
Abel Principal Cast Wilson Gonzalez Ochsenknecht, Constanze
Waechter, Justus von Dohnányi, Leon A.J. Pfannenmueller, Judith
Rosmair, Leo van Kann, Fridolin Sandmeyer, Kais Setti Casting Nina
Haun Format RED CAM (HD), color, 1:1.78, Stereo Shooting
Language German Shooting in Berlin, July – August 2009
Contact
teamWorx Television & Film GmbH · Jana Brandes
Dianastrasse 21 · 14482 Potsdam/Germany
phone +49-3 31-70 60 381 · fax +49-3 31-70 60 380
email: jana.brandes@teamworx.de
www.teamworx.de
This summer saw producer Christian Rohde of teamWorx
and ZDFtheaterkanal’s Wolfgang Bergmann collaborating
for the fourth time on adapting one of Germany’s theater classics
after Uwe Janson’s three films based on Bertolt Brecht’s Baal (2003),
Frank Wedekind’s Lulu (2005) and Goethe’s Werther (2008).
The idea of bringing Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (Fruehlings
Erwachen) to the screen came after Rohde was contacted by Nuran
David Calis’ agent who recommended that he see the young
writer-director’s staging of Wedekind’s play at the Schauspiel theater
in Hanover.
“This production has been very successful and is now touring
throughout Germany,” says Rohde, pointing out that the performance
he attended “was packed with young people who were all
following the play very attentively.”
Rohde and the commissioning editor Meike Klingenberg didn’t
need much convincing that Calis would be the right man to adapt the
play for the ZDFtheaterkanal. A graduate of the Otto Falkenberg
School in Munich, Calis had worked at theaters in Munich, Zurich,
Hamburg and Berlin, produced music videos for hip hop bands, and
has become one of the most talked about directors and writers for
german films quarterly in production
4 · 2009 20
The cast of “Fruehlings Erwachen”
(photo © Jim Rakete)