POP CULTURE! Issue

Strawberry
Bubblegums:
An Interview
Interview & photography by Friederike Suckert
We need to talk about
German film again.
There’s a bunch of youngsters who have a
lot of stories to tell that don’t contain Nazis
or Stasi-spies. For sure, that’s fascinating
and important stuff, but the world goes on
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and gets weird and so talented directors
like Axel Ranisch (“Ich fühl mich Disco“)
and Sebastian Schipper (“Victoria“) put
their visions on screen.
The Hamburg Media School has a new
talent to show off: Benjamin Teske. He has
created many award winning short movies
and just released his first feature film
this autumn, “Strawberry Bubblegums“.
The story follows Lucy, a teenager who
doesn’t know her father. Her mother Paula
confesses that she was once a porn star and
Lucy was fathered during a porn shoot,
which prompts our main protagonist
to find her roots. Lucy jumps headfirst
into the porn scene where she meets Udo
Ochsenschwanz, a former Porn superstar,
who knows the scene by heart and is willing
to help her. A unique road trip through the
north of Germany starts where they meet
a lot of droll people, resulting in the special
bond between them growing stronger and
stronger. It’s a classical coming-of-age
story about losing and finding identity in
a rough surrounding.
For the cast Benjamin Teske found
a bunch of extraordinary actors and
actresses, most notably Gloria Endres de
Oliveira and André M. Hennicke builds
the comedic dream team, but there are a
few well-known supporting actors: Jasmin
Tabatabai, Lars Rudolph and Sabin
Tambrea. It’s a lovely quality of Teske that
he’s a loyal director who puts his actors and
actresses of former movies into recent ones.
Gloria and Sabin were main actors of his
former shorts, but also Janna Horstmann.
I was able to do a little shoot with
Benjamin, Gloria and André and we
chatted a bit about the work on such
an ambitious project. We will be able to
watch this great debut in February on the
German channel NDR and we’re going to
love it!