Last year, our series GOETHE FILMS looked at the fruitful decades-long director-actor collaboration between “Margarethe + Barbara” (von Trotta + Sukowa, that is). Now “Laura + Laura” (Lackmann + Tonke) are picking up that all-female power couple baton. Two friends, both artists, both born in Berlin in the 1970s, both fascinated by women with depression as well as guts, broken relationships and self-love, panic attacks and a dark sense of humour. The director and actress have been crossing professional paths repeatedly and in many different guises. Their latest collaboration is about to hit German cinemas.
Tuesday, May 29. 2018
Laura x Laura: Director-Actor duo Lackmann + Tonke
Last year, our series GOETHE FILMS looked at the fruitful decades-long director-actor collaboration between “Margarethe + Barbara” (von Trotta + Sukowa, that is). Now “Laura + Laura” (Lackmann + Tonke) are picking up that all-female power couple baton. Two friends, both artists, both born in Berlin in the 1970s, both fascinated by women with depression as well as guts, broken relationships and self-love, panic attacks and a dark sense of humour. The director and actress have been crossing professional paths repeatedly and in many different guises. Their latest collaboration is about to hit German cinemas.
Director Laura Lackmann (born in 1979) studied Directing at the New York Film Academy and the German Film & Television Academy Berlin. After directing several shorts, she made her feature debut with the award-winning 2016 literary adaptation TOO HARD TO HANDLE, based on Sarah Kuttner’s sensational (feminist) novel, in which her friend, actress Laura Tonke (born in 1974) starred in a supporting role.
Laura Tonke had her screen debut at the age of 17 --cast straight out of her West Berlin school yard- as the female lead in Michael Klier's OSTKREUZ (yes, that Klier, who worked with François Truffaut and Harun Farocki). After graduating from high school, she studied drama in Berlin (but never went to acting school) and had her first memorable role as Nina in Tom Tykwer's WINTERSLEEPERS in 1997. Major breakthroughs were her lead roles in the theatrical releases BAADER (as Gudrun Ensslin ) and PIGS WILL FLY, both in 2002. Her performances in these two films won her the New Faces Award and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 2003 German Film Award. At the top of her game in her late 20s, her film career started to slow down.
But that same year, she made her stage debut at the mythical Volksbühne theatre in Berlin, followed by lackluster years of working in TV productions. In 2015, Tonke made her comeback to the big screen to rave reviews with her portrayal of a young mother who suddenly suffers from panic attacks in Sonja Heiss' celebrated and globally successful tragicomedy HEDI SCHNEIDER IS STUCK, which the Goethe-Institut co-presented at the 2015 Rendezvous with Madness Festival in Toronto. Tonke won the German Film Award for both Best Actress and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for HEDI SCHNEIDER and Lackmann’s TOO HARD TO HANDLE, respectively, --the first time these two awards were given to the same actress in the same year. She again shone in Sonja Kröner’s THE GARDEN, at TIFF 2017 and is currently in production for Philipp Kadelbach’s adaptation of Frank Goosen’s book SO MUCH TIME, alongside the who’s who of German film, Jürgen Vogel, Jeanette Hain, Alwara Höfels, Jan Josef Liefers, Richy Müller, and Armin Rohde.
Somewhere between Greta Gerwig, Michelle Williams, and Amy Schumer, fragile, resilient and stubborn (and perhaps thus ideally cast in films around mental health), subtle in her expression, but frank in interviews about self-doubt and her struggles with a make-or-break industry, Laura Tonke has been reaching further afield in her own artistic expression. She recently illustrated Laura Lackmann’s (very filmic) debut novel “The Periods after the Full Stop“ with cute/explicit drawings --featuring protagonist ... Laura. Tonke had already published her own self-explanatory book "My Best Time – Facebook Graffitis Oct 2008 - March 2009". She is also keeping up with her off-screen work, having joined the German-British Performance group Gob Squad (the Goethe-Instiut Toronto’s guests at the Luminato Festival in 2013). "Gob Squad is the opposite of this passive existence as an actor. We make our own decisions, without a director,“ Tonke said.
Lackmann as a director of Tonke seems to be a sustainable formula though. The two Lauras are back together again in the cinema: Tonke stars in Lackmann’s second feature film MISSION: LOVE (trailer), a meta rom-com about a couple's search for their lost love, for which Lackmann also wrote the screenplay. Full disclosure: One of my favourite films of the last 12 months. Hans (Marc Hosemann) calls his girlfriend (Laura Tonke) “Heinz” - which tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. They're a typical couple who are stuck in a rut after eight years. Hans works at a copy shop and Heinz is an actress relegated to dubbing a cartoon traffic light. On their anniversary, they go to the movies. It's a romance. But the spark on screen just doesn't strike them. When Hans gives Heinz' ex her phone number instead of putting up a fight over her, Heinz' alarm bells go off: How can this be love? They decide to make a list of everything that makes up “real love”: romance, desire, passion, jealousy, drama – deep feelings, in other words. Hans and Heinz methodically start checking off their list and realize: Real life is nothing like the movies.
The film premiered at the Munich International Film festival in June 2017, the German theatrical release is set for 31 May 2018. Recommended watching.
by Jutta Brendemühl
photo: Lackmann Tonke photo Oberdorfer
Laura Tonke had her screen debut at the age of 17 --cast straight out of her West Berlin school yard- as the female lead in Michael Klier's OSTKREUZ (yes, that Klier, who worked with François Truffaut and Harun Farocki). After graduating from high school, she studied drama in Berlin (but never went to acting school) and had her first memorable role as Nina in Tom Tykwer's WINTERSLEEPERS in 1997. Major breakthroughs were her lead roles in the theatrical releases BAADER (as Gudrun Ensslin ) and PIGS WILL FLY, both in 2002. Her performances in these two films won her the New Faces Award and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 2003 German Film Award. At the top of her game in her late 20s, her film career started to slow down.
But that same year, she made her stage debut at the mythical Volksbühne theatre in Berlin, followed by lackluster years of working in TV productions. In 2015, Tonke made her comeback to the big screen to rave reviews with her portrayal of a young mother who suddenly suffers from panic attacks in Sonja Heiss' celebrated and globally successful tragicomedy HEDI SCHNEIDER IS STUCK, which the Goethe-Institut co-presented at the 2015 Rendezvous with Madness Festival in Toronto. Tonke won the German Film Award for both Best Actress and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for HEDI SCHNEIDER and Lackmann’s TOO HARD TO HANDLE, respectively, --the first time these two awards were given to the same actress in the same year. She again shone in Sonja Kröner’s THE GARDEN, at TIFF 2017 and is currently in production for Philipp Kadelbach’s adaptation of Frank Goosen’s book SO MUCH TIME, alongside the who’s who of German film, Jürgen Vogel, Jeanette Hain, Alwara Höfels, Jan Josef Liefers, Richy Müller, and Armin Rohde.
Somewhere between Greta Gerwig, Michelle Williams, and Amy Schumer, fragile, resilient and stubborn (and perhaps thus ideally cast in films around mental health), subtle in her expression, but frank in interviews about self-doubt and her struggles with a make-or-break industry, Laura Tonke has been reaching further afield in her own artistic expression. She recently illustrated Laura Lackmann’s (very filmic) debut novel “The Periods after the Full Stop“ with cute/explicit drawings --featuring protagonist ... Laura. Tonke had already published her own self-explanatory book "My Best Time – Facebook Graffitis Oct 2008 - March 2009". She is also keeping up with her off-screen work, having joined the German-British Performance group Gob Squad (the Goethe-Instiut Toronto’s guests at the Luminato Festival in 2013). "Gob Squad is the opposite of this passive existence as an actor. We make our own decisions, without a director,“ Tonke said.
Lackmann as a director of Tonke seems to be a sustainable formula though. The two Lauras are back together again in the cinema: Tonke stars in Lackmann’s second feature film MISSION: LOVE (trailer), a meta rom-com about a couple's search for their lost love, for which Lackmann also wrote the screenplay. Full disclosure: One of my favourite films of the last 12 months. Hans (Marc Hosemann) calls his girlfriend (Laura Tonke) “Heinz” - which tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. They're a typical couple who are stuck in a rut after eight years. Hans works at a copy shop and Heinz is an actress relegated to dubbing a cartoon traffic light. On their anniversary, they go to the movies. It's a romance. But the spark on screen just doesn't strike them. When Hans gives Heinz' ex her phone number instead of putting up a fight over her, Heinz' alarm bells go off: How can this be love? They decide to make a list of everything that makes up “real love”: romance, desire, passion, jealousy, drama – deep feelings, in other words. Hans and Heinz methodically start checking off their list and realize: Real life is nothing like the movies.
The film premiered at the Munich International Film festival in June 2017, the German theatrical release is set for 31 May 2018. Recommended watching.
by Jutta Brendemühl
photo: Lackmann Tonke photo Oberdorfer
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