Quarterly 4 · 2006 - German Cinema

tion indicated that it wanted to put them on the pay roll as salaried
staff, they decided instead to take the plunge and set up shop with
their own production company, TAG/TRAUM Filmproduktion.
Both partners were writer-directors, with Schmitt (who left the company
in 2004) continuing later to work as a director on documentary
portraits, in particular, long after Haag had decided to concentrate his
energies on producing at the company.
Haag sees himself very much though in the role of a creative producer
when working with directors: "That’s what I like most of all, to
develop projects and bring creative team members together to work
on a regular basis, like I have done now with Iain Dilthey on two films,
with Heidi Specogna, Isabelle Stever and others. I am attracted by the
idea of accompanying people and seeing how they develop creatively
and I feel a great responsibility as a producer. I like concentrating
my work on young directors and their first feature films: this is a special
challenge for me because, in the debut films of young directors,
one is often presented with very personal subjects and the talent is
also clearly visible, but often not yet polished. However, the challenge
of looking at life in this world with cinematic means is always
intensive and that actually stimulates my own view of filmmaking."
In his opinion, the relationship between the producer and director
should be "based on a mutual understanding. It is not a case of
someone saying: ’I want this or I want that’ or people fighting with
one another, but rather that everyone is pulling in the same direction.
The work with Iain or Heidi is a real pleasure because I can see that
there is something here where I can contribute, where they believe in
me, and I can believe in them."
"What I am definitely trying to do is to get the audience to realize that
there are people behind the projects who have a particular point of
view, that they want to express something," Haag says. "This is important
for us – whether it be a human issue or a political subject – in
order to say something about the state of the world."
Over the years, TAG/TRAUM has achieved an eclectic production
mix of feature films, feature documentaries and other formats for
television: "Our capacity at the company allows us to handle 1-2 feature
films a year – but, as a rule, it is one production – while we will
work on 2-3 documentaries that have potential for the cinema, and
the rest – 10-15 projects – are programs for television on cultural and
historical topics and current affairs," Haag notes.
Last year, for example, the company completed the documentaries
Before Flying Back to Earth by Lithuanian filmmaker Arunas
Matelis, Udo Vieth’s Beckhams Zahl, Basile Sallustio’s Maca –
Die Wunderpflanze mit Potenz, two episodes of Die
Zwanziger Jahre by Heidi Wilke and Florian von Stetten, Monika
Siegfried-Hagenow’s Die Enkel der Gelatieri, Antonio Cascais’
Heimatreport and Lutz Gregor’s Frankfurt Dance Cuts,
while 2004 saw the production of portraits of Martin Luther King (by
Claus Bredenbrock and Pagonis Pagonakis) and Artur Brauner (by
Gisela Anna Stuempel) as well as contributions to ARTE theme evenings
(Peter Kremski’s essay Ueberraschende Begegnungen
der kurzen Art and Donatello and Fosco Dubini’s documentary
Heisse Ware – Die Kurzfilmtage zwischen Ost und
West, and Monika Kirschner’s Der Tag, der alles aenderte).
TAG/TRAUM has also served as the German partner for inter-
national co-productions such as the Leidulv Risan’s The Sunset
Boys, starring veteran Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum, or the
documentaries In The Mirror of Maya Deren by Martina
Kudlacek and Forget Baghdad by Samir. But the company has also
kept a look out for foreign partners to board its own in-house projects.
"It has mainly been in the German-speaking area, although I have
also worked with Canada, Italy, Scandinavia, France, Benelux and now
Lithuania," Haag comments. "I would like to do more, but I know that
you don’t build up a relationship through just one project, you have
to do a couple of projects together before you have that trust. I have
to be sure that the way I love the projects and want to see them
realized is also something that is shared by my production partner."
A fruitful working relationship has now developed, for example,
between TAG/TRAUM and the Austrian production house
FISCHERFILM. Markus Fischer was a partner for Haag on Iain
Dilthey’s Locarno competition film Prisoners and attracted backing
from the Austrian RTR Television Fund for the project which was
partly shot at locations in Vienna.
The two are now in preparations for an ambitious TV project, the sixpart
series We Europeans! which is a journey back through six
centuries – the 15th to 20th centuries – to illustrate how our common
history has created common values. Each of the six episodes
focuses on one European achievement. Ideas which still characterize
European policy, our consciousness and actions today: individualism,
capitalism, peace, freedom and the nation are the stuff Europe is
made of. In the sixth episode, there is a summing up of what the 20th
century has done with this legacy. WDR, MDR, ARTE and ORF are
onboard as broadcaster partners.
Haag expects that next year will be largely taken up with this project
which is described in its promotional material as "a glossy history format
of international caliber...consisting of documentary and re-enacted
parts", but hopes that production might also begin in 2007 on Iain
Dilthey’s next feature project, Meeresrand, an adaptation of the
French novel Bord de mer by Véronique Olmi. A decision has not yet
been made as to whether the film might be shot predominantly with
French actors, but a start was made by attracting interest from a
French production partner – Dominique Crevecoeur of Bandoneon
– after Haag pitched the project at last year’s Rendez-vous francoallemands
du cinéma in Cologne.
Gerd Haag spoke with Martin Blaney
german films quarterly producer’s portrait
4 · 2006 13