Quarterly 2 · 2008 - German Films

in Munich, worked as an assistant director for various projects, and
was the assistant to Maria Koepf at X Filme for three years until the
end of 2004.
23|5’s second film – And Along Come Tourists – was the
company’s first to be directed by someone other than Schmid. “We
came across the project pretty much at the same time. Britta had read
an early draft of the treatment and I met Robert Thalheim in Slubice
because he had made a short film about the German-Polish border
and it was shown there with my Distant Lights,” Schmid recalls.
“Funnily enough, this German-Polish relationship has not let go of me
since Distant Lights: I have continued working with my Polish DoP
Bogumil [Godfrejow] and the interest in our neighbor is just as keen
as shown by my upcoming documentary Die wundersame Welt
der Waschkraft [about the journey made by dirty bed-linen from
Berlin’s 5-star hotels to laundries in Poland]. The idea for this film
came from a newspaper article I had read, and I immediately thought
that it was like a missing episode from Distant Lights. It was a
spontaneous reaction to make the film.”
For Schmid, who had studied at Munich’s University of Television &
Film (HFF/M), it was the first time that he had directed a documentary
since his graduation film Die Mechanik des Wunders in 1992 about
his home town of Altoetting in Bavaria. Since then, he had only been
involved in the shooting of one other documentary when he served
as cameraman in Poland for Michael Gutmann’s contribution to the
Denk’ ich an Deutschland series. “It was a very new experience for me
after 15 years and really exciting,” Schmid observes.
Currently in post-production, Die wundersame Welt der
Waschkraft will be released theatrically in Germany by Piffl
Medien and is being handled internationally by Bavaria Film
International.
At the same time, Schmid is preparing his own next feature project –
Storm – for 23|5 which will see him reunited with Requiem screen -
writer Bernd Lange, this time as co-writers.
“We are both fans of New Hollywood Cinema and political thrillers,
and of films which function for a good part of the time as dramas
alongside the thriller elements,” says Schmid.
The €6.4 million project is set to be co-produced by 23|5 with
Zentropa Berlin and Cologne, the Zentropa mother company in
Denmark, and the new Zentropa Amsterdam outpost with an international
cast this summer at locations in Bosnia and the Netherlands
and interiors in a German studio. Piffl Medien is already lined up as
German distributor, with Trust Film Sales as the international sales agent.
“The film is about a prosecutor at the war tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia
in The Hague who is trying to persuade a witness to come to the
court to give evidence,” Schmid explains. “The woman has to risk a
lot and confront her past trauma, but it eventually turns out that there
is resistance from the outside as well as within the tribunal to this eviden
ce being made public. The tribunal does not operate in a vacuum,
but is embedded in a political context and dependent on financial
backers.”
As to be expected with such subject matter, this project has demand -
ed that two screenwriters undertake a lot of background research,
making trips to The Hague and field research in Sarajevo and Banja
Luka and speaking with prosecutors and defense counsel as well as
people from the Victims and Witnesses Unit and the International
Criminal Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia (ICTY).
“Thematically, it is about law, justice and integrity and the question as
to what amount of importance is given to this precious entity of international
law,” Schmid notes.
Meanwhile, Knoeller is working at the same time on the development
of the German-French co-production La Lisiere by Geraldine
Bajard which was presented at the German-French Rendez-vous in
Munich in 2006 and at the Capital Regions for Cinema co-production
meeting during this year’s Berlinale.
As Knoeller points out, there is no hard and fast division of labor be -
tween herself and Schmid in the company. On a superficial level, she
looks after the production nuts-and-bolts, while Schmid focuses on
the artistic side. “But I am not someone who is just interested in the
figures. I am just as keen at being involved in the phase of story development
and the discussions on the screenplays,” she adds.
“Of course, it is a great advantage to have somebody like Hans-
Christian in the company who is making his own films apart from
those of the other filmmakers,” she says. “But with La Lisiere, for
example, I discovered this project and will continue with the development.
We discuss the project together, but it is more with me.
Moreover, Hans-Christian is not just involved in artistic matters for
there were moments on And Along Come Tourists where he
was very much playing the producer and looking at his watch.”
“We complement one another,” Schmid continues. “My interest is
also, of course, to know how the film will be produced, what will the
budget and financing plan look like. And the same goes for Britta’s
interest in the storylines.”
“A particular focus for us is on developing the screenplays thoroughly,”
Knoeller stresses. “All of the projects have needed longer in the
development phase than originally scheduled. But it paid off as far as
And Along Come Tourists is concerned, which we shot a year
later than planned. We have also worked very intensively on the screen -
play for La Lisiere and the writing process has taken longer on
Storm as well. But I don’t think that is a bad thing because there are
too many films in German cinemas where the scripts don’t seem fully
developed.”
As for the future, 23|5 has plenty to keep it busy: a children’s feature
Mein Sommer mit Molomok is in development for production
next year, and new projects by screenwriters Markus Busch and
Daniel Nocke are currently in the treatment stage.
Hans-Christian Schmid and Britta Knoeller spoke with Martin Blaney
german films quarterly producers’ portrait
2 · 2008 17