Quarterly 4 · 2009 - German Films

Sebastian Schipper (photo courtesy of Sebastian Schipper)
DIRECTOR’S PORTRAIT
Sebastian Schipper was born in Hanover in 1968. After studying
to be an actor at the Falckenberg Schule in Munich, he shot his first
short film in 1994 entitled Wunderhell. His second short film,
Heldensommer, followed a year later and in 1996 he appeared in
Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. He has played roles in,
amongst others, Maja (1996), Wintersleepers (Winterschlaefer, 1997),
Run Lola Run (Lola rennt, 1998), Eine ungehorsame Frau (TV, 1998),
Der Koenig von St. Pauli (TV, 1998) and Nightsongs (Die Nacht singt ihre
Lieder, 2004). He has scripted and directed three feature films:
Gigantic (Absolut Giganten, 1999), A Friend of Mine (Ein
Freund von mir, 2006) and Sometime in August (Mitte
Ende August, 2009). He is currently completing work on the script
for his fourth feature Odysseus and is about to star in Tom
Tykwer’s forthcoming feature Drei.
THE SCHIPPER FORECAST
A portrait of Sebastian Schipper
“I think the challenge for films is that you want to fly and still touch the
ground at the same time,” 41-year-old director, scriptwriter and actor
Sebastian Schipper says of the motivation behind his work. “You
want a miracle but you want to believe in it.”
Although his work as a director has yet to reach a substantial worldwide
audience, it’s fair to say that over the last ten years Schipper’s
trademark mixture of understated surrealism, offbeat humor and a
perceptive insight into human psychology have carved him a significant
niche in his German homeland. Despite starting out as an actor –
including a role in Anthony Minghella’s multiple Oscar ® -winning The
English Patient – it’s as the screenwriter and director behind three defiantly
German films that he has earned a reputation as one of the
country’s most promising cinematic talents.
Gigantic came first, a witty and touching story about three friends
enjoying their last night together in Hamburg before one of them
moves to Cape Town. Initially the movie sank with little trace, but its
DVD release provided a second opportunity for it to reach its audience.
“For the first half a year after the film came out,” Schipper reminisces,
“it was a disaster. Nobody really knew the actors, it was
obviously a small budget film, and Germans just didn’t trust it. Then it
got nominated for a German Film Award, and then it won a German
Film Award in silver, and about a year after it got distributed I realized
a lot of people got a kick when I said, ‘Yeah, I directed that film’.
They’d say, ‘Really? I saw that film eleven times!’ I never saw any film
eleven times!”
The film’s strengths lie in the relationship between its three central
characters and Schipper’s exploration of what unites and separates
them as much as it does in its memorable set pieces. Amidst the unlikely
tension of a table football game, a clash with drag-racing Elvis
impersonators and hours spent drinking in empty bars or kicking heels
in parking garages emerges a lingering portrait of urban German life
and camaraderie that reaches far beyond its geographical roots.
Schipper is sanguine about its initial lack of success, however. “It was
not an obvious comedy: three guys, one last night, a German film,
especially in those days. German hit films are comedies or they’re
people marching. Whether they’re marching for Hitler or East
Germany, there’s not a big difference. The Germans must march or
they’ve got to be funny. But Gigantic was what the French call a
comedie humaine. You don’t laugh your arse off.”
Its subsequent growing cult status, however, paved the way for his
second film, A Friend of Mine. Once again, Schipper immerses
himself in the minutiae of human relationships, singling out a short
period in his protagonists’ lives and zooming in on little details that
have significant repercussions. Karl, played by Daniel Bruehl, is an
unfulfilled twentysomething who steps out of the comfort zone of his
german films quarterly director’s portrait
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