Over the summer I had the chance to skype with Andreas Dresen -full disclosure: one of my favourite auteurs- about his 1992 feature debut "Silent Country", which we showed on 35mm to amazed audiences in Toronto recently. In the film, young, naive and enthusiastic theatre director Kai comes to a grim East German provincial town to put on Beckett's “Waiting for Godot”. Although the lethargic company shows no interest in the play, his spirit remains undaunted. Meanwhile, it is fall 1989. The world is changing and far away in the capital, a revolution is taking place. Great hopes emerge in the little town, and unexpected events overtake Kai's derailed production. Reflections of and on Dresen's own life and work are inevitable. His latest film "Als wir träumten" (German trailer), again set in the GDR around the "Wende", is in Competition at Berlinale 2015.
Jutta Brendemühl: Your first major feature film, shot in 1991 and set during the last days of the GDR, is called “Silent Country” – ”Stilles Land” in the original German. In how far did you experience Germany around 1989 as “still”, silent or quiet?
Andreas Dresen: A country can be “still” if it is paralyzed, if nothing happens anymore, when there is no going forward or backward. “Still” as standstill. But “still” can also be a poetic entity in which we can find ourselves. The title therefore has a double meaning. The pivotal point was a poem by Wolf Biermann of the same title: “Das Land ist still” - the county is silent. And it surely has a mean streak to it, too. In the film, nobody reacts to the political events that happen outside the theatre – the escape of many GDR citizens via Hungary. It seriously was that “silent” in September 1989.
Continue reading "Interview: Andreas Dresen on 1989/2014 (part 1/2)" »
What do "Metropolis", "The Blue Angel", "Jakob the Liar" --the only GDR production ever nominated for an Oscar--, "Inglourious Basterds", and "Monuments Men" have in common? All have been shot, since its doors opened in 1912, at the Babelsberg Studios just outside Berlin. Tom Hanks and Tom Tykwer just went back there to shoot their latest mega project "Hologram for a King", further putting the location on the map as Europe's Hollywood. 
