Titel Kino 1/2002 - German Cinema

idea of ”Radikal digital” is that the young creative talents are
acquainted for the first time with this technology”, Schneider
declares.
Junimond centers on Paul who is constantly trying to escape his
past and some traumatic experiences he had as a KFOR soldier in
Kosovo. He arrives in the small town of Paderborn from Berlin
and becomes acquainted at a distance with a young woman, Nele,
in his street. Gradually, something like trust and friendship develops
between the two and they begin to open up to each other
more and more. But a relationship is out of the question for both
of them as they believe that the beginning of a love affair is always
the beginning of a painful ending. However, it is obvious to any
outside observer that they are in love with one another. It is only
when Paul is diagnosed with a terminal illness that the two at last
admit to their feelings for one another.
Die Madonna
von Vlatodon
Original Title Die Madonna von Vlatodon (working title)
English Title The Madonna of Vlatodon (working title)
Type of Project Feature Film Cinema Genre Drama
Production Company Confine Film, Munich, in co-production
with ARRI, Munich, Cinecam, Munich, Academy of Television &
Film (HFF/M), Munich With backing from FilmFernsehFonds
Bayern, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film Producer/
Director/Screenplay/Editor Mirjam Kubescha Directors
of Photography Pawel Sobcyk, Eric van den Brulle Principal
Cast Monika Bleibtreu, Maria Cordoni, Martin Glade Casting
Franziska Aigner Kuhn, C.A.T., Munich Format Super 35 mm,
color, cs, Dolby Digital Shooting Language Greek, German
Shooting in Munich, Simbach and Greece in August and
September 2001
Contact:
Confine Film · Mirjam Kubescha
Bayerisches Filmzentrum Geiselgasteig
Bavariafilmplatz 7 · D-82031 Geiselgasteig
phone +49-89-64 98 10 · fax +49-89-64 98 11 00
email: Bavaria-International@bavaria-film.de
Kino 1/2002
Laura Tonke, Oliver Mommsen (photo © Road Movies)
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Mirjam Kubescha (photo © Eric van den Brulle) in
production
The idea for Mirjam Kubescha’s fourth film The Madonna
of Vlatodon came to her when she was standing in front of one
of Andrei Rublev’s icons in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
Originally, she had planned the film to be a short exercise during
her studies at the Academy of Television & Film in Munich, but
then the project was put on the back burner when another two
films took precedent. However, Kubescha doesn’t regret the
delay because it gave the film ”time for the story to mature and
formally to profit from subsequent experiences“.
The film follows the day in the life of an elderly museum guide and
travels back in time through flashbacks to see her as a young
Greek woman falling in love with a handsome German seaman
and then following him back to his homeland.
As Kubescha recalls, the production was not without its own
little dramas: shooting had to be brought forward a month because
of other commitments of lead actress Monika Bleibtreu,
and then her cameraman Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein –
with whom she had worked on Ecce Homo – was involved in a
helicopter crash just ten days before principal photography was
supposed to start.
With just six days to go and still no replacement, she decided to
fulfill a long-held desire to work with an East European director of
photography and made contact with the 28-year-old Pole Pawel
Sobcyk via film students in Moscow and Warsaw. ”It was spot
on because Pawel was in a similar period of his development as
far as content was concerned. He wanted to put aesthetic demands
into the background in favor of more honesty“, she says.
Together with the New York photographer and independent
filmmaker Eric van den Brulle, whom Kubescha had met at
the Munich Film Festival, Sobcyk formed ”a great East-West
team“, the young director explains. ”They complemented each
other and me in such a way that this shooting certainly represents
the most exciting and perhaps also most fruitful experience to
date“.
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