Formentera Pressemappe.indd

Sabine Timoteo
Thure Lindhardt
Ein Film von Ann-Kristin Reyels
mit Ilse Ritter, Tatja Seibt, Christian Brückner, Geoffrey Layton, Vicky Krieps, Frank Bruneau, Finn-Henry Reyels und Bonaparte
Regie: Ann-Kristin Reyels · Buch: Antonia Rothe, Kathrin Milhahn, Ann-Kristin Reyels · Casting: Ulrike Müller · Kamera: Henner Besuch
Montage: Halina Daugird · Ausstattung: Peter Weiss · Kostüm: Manfred Schneider · Ton: Andreas Mücke Niesytka
Mischung: Lars Ginzel · Musik: Henry Reyels, Marko Baumgartner · Produktionsleitung: Heino Herrenbrück
Redaktion: Christian Cloos, Anne Even, Georg Steinert · Produzent: Titus Kreyenberg
Eine Produktion der unafilm in Koproduktion mit ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel, ARTE und The Post Republic
Formentera
Illes Balears
Cast and Crew
Synopsis
Sabine Timoteo
Thure Lindhardt
Nina
Ben
Ilse Ritter
Tatja Seibt
Vicky Krieps
Wencke
Christine
Mara
Christian Brückner
Geoffrey Layton
Franc Bruneau
Finn-Henry Reyels
Pit
Georg
Pablo
Yoko
special guests
BONAPARTE
Ann-Kristin Reyels
Ann-Kristin Reyels
Antonia Rothe
Katrin Milhan
Henner Besuch
Halina Daugird
Peter Weiss
Manfred Schneider
Monika Münnich
Ulrike Müller
Andreas Mücke
Heino Herrenbrück
Henry Reyels
Marco Baumgartner
director
writers
Christian Cloos
Anne Even
Georg Steinert
commissioning
editors
Titus Kreyenberg
producer
DOP
editor
set design
costume design
make-up
casting
sound
production manager
original music
unafilm in coproduction with ZDF Das kleine
Fernsehspiel, arte and The Post Republic.
Nina and Ben have been together for many
years. They have a three-year-old daughter.
Their first vacation without their child leads
them to the south: to Formentera. Caressed by
the sun and the warm Mediterranean winds
they enjoy their freedom from the necessities
of everyday life. Finally they have some time
on their own. But during a wild beach party
the paradise turns into hell: Ben is flirting with
the young and beautiful Mara and at the end
of the night Mara und Nina dive into the dark
sea. Nina is drifted away and only just manages to get back on land on a different island.
Mara, however, has gone missing... Nina and
Ben are caught in a deep crisis, questioning
everything they once believed in. The sunny
island turns into a darkroom, rendering visible
what has been concealed: doubts concerning
the plans they had for their lives and a quiet
grief over a reality that may only be accepted.
After her critically acclaimed and awarded debut „Hounds“, Ann-Kristin Reyels once again
proves herself an accurate observer and sensitive storyteller. Featuring the impressing
performances of lead actors Sabine Timoteo
and Thure Lindhardt, „Formentera“ is an intense and deeply touching portrait of a generation in search of its own identity.
Notes on the film
In her second feature, Ann-Kristin Reyels tells
a story that many young couples with children can relate to. It raises the question about
dreams that have withered in the day-to-day
routine. Where has become of the future that
once seemed as bright as the midday sun on
Formentera? What became of the plan to lead
a different life, of not becoming like so many
generations before?
Ann-Kristin Reyels director
Nina (Sabine Timoteo) and Ben (Thure Lindhardt) have always taken their dreams and
themselves for granted. Being alone again
for the first time they start to realize that they
have lost their inner connection to each other.
The child that kept them happily together
in the past years is not with them now and
it seems like they have to get to know each
other all over again. Overshadowed by mutual
accusations concerning the death of a young
woman this is not an easy thing to do.
Sabine Timoteo Nina
Born in Bern, Switzerland, Sabine Timoteo
has been seen in many award winning films,
like L‘Amour (P. Gröning), Der Freie Wille (M.
Glasner), Gespenster (C. Petzold) or Brownian
Movement (N. Leopold). Apart from working
as an actress, she has worked as a professional cook and balett dancer.
Thure Lindhardt Ben
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark and worked
with directors like, Neil Jordan, Bille August,
Ole Christian Madsen, Sean Penn and many
more. He won the Shooting Star Award at
the Berlinale in 2000 and the Danish Robert
Award for Nordkraft.
Ann-Kristin Reyels was born 1976 in Leipzig,
Germany. She worked as a researcher and assistant to Heinrich Breloer on his award winning TV-Feature The Manns as well as camera
assistant to Peter von Haller. From 2001-2007
she studied film at the Academy of Film and
Television Konrad Wolf (HFF) in Potsdam. She
finished her studies with her much acclaimed
film Jagdhunde / Hounds, which won the
FIPRESCI Award for best feature at the 2007
Berlinale. Ann-Kristin Reyels lives Berlin and
is currently working on her next feature.
Awards for Jagdhunde / Hounds (selection)
Best Director
Palm Springs IFF, USA (2008)
Fringe Report Award, London, (2008)
DEFA-Young Talent Award & Cinestar Award,
Filmkunstfest, Schwerin, (2007)
Best Movie
Berlinale FIBRESCI-Award (2007)
Festival of German Film, Nantes (2007)
Art of Film Award, Ludwigshafen (2007)
Interview Ann-Kristin Reyels
What made you write this story?
The observations I’ve made around me. How
do I want to live is an important question
for people in their 30s and 40s. For many it
seems like now is the last moment to sneak
out of a situation that feels gridlocked and determined. Introducing the parent generation
in Formentera I thought that the life concept
of the hippie generation has a lot to say without spelling it out too much.
This generation of parents also played an important role in your first feature, JAGDHUNDE
/ HOUNDS, where the father moves to the
country to lead a different life. Do you think
that this generation has had more freedom at
hand compared to todays generation of parents?
I do not think that living in a commune equals
freedom or liberty. But as Christine says in
the film, young people in the sixties have at
least tried to have a different life. Maybe this
generation had more freedom but it’s equally
possible that they were just braver. Things
one had to rebel against seem to have been
way more evident.
To what extent?
25 years after World War II and a generation of
parents who were more or less involved in the
Nazi regime you knew what to rebel against.
Today you are cornered by possibilities and it
seems easier to define what you do not want
at all. To me that is a big difference and to be
able to spell out what I actually want is quite a
lot and part of the freedom that I was referring
to. The generation of 68 are the parents of my
generation or were at least influenced by their
ideas and I think it has become increasingly
difficult to find the right way, when as a child
you’ve been told, just listen to yourself and you
will find the right way. What I am interested in
is the idea of a free and independent life that
has a lot to do with the liberation of ones own
constraints, which in turn does not mean that
you do have to live on an island as a hippie.
What does freedom mean to you?
I believe that it is probably the most labourintensive, most difficult and most desirable
state you can reach in life – to live in selfdetermination based on your own free will.
Important decisions should not be made because of others or depending on circumstances. One should be able to make them oneself.
Did you have any particular actors in mind
while you were writing?
Of course you think of actors while you are in
the writing process. I knew that I wanted to
work with Sabine Timoteo and Thure Lindhardt
after our first casting which was just great. It
may sound tacky but it was really magic and I
hoped that they would agree to play the parts.
When they said they would, they stayed with
me and the project although it took such a
long time to have the film realized.
The mode of life is not crucial to me, rather the
inner state of being. If that is not right, a relationship, I would say, seems rather difficult.
Why did you choose to make the film on Formentera?
I knew that a lot of former dropouts live on the
island. So I thought that maybe we would find
the proper surrounding for the shoot. I wanted
to shoot all the scenes outside the finca in
an uncontrolled environment and I thought it
would be important to see a few hippies here
and there. Apart from that I found this Mediterranean idyll far more tempting than the rough
climate on other dropout-islands in the Atlantic. When I travelled to Formentera for the frst
timetogether with the two other writers, Antonia and Katrin, it became clear that the story
had to unfold there.
The film has a hopeful ending. Is it possible to
change ones life after all?
I would hope so. The couple in my film has all
options. I firmly believe that they will try. They
are connected forever through their daughter
and they have both reclaimed a small piece
of freedom on the island. A consoling end has
been important to me from the beginning.
How did you work with the actors? Did you
rehearse and improvise in advance?
I spend a long weekend with Sabine and Thure
before we started shooting, to read the script
and to choose the costumes. That was terribly important for our collaboration. We had to
make the film for a shoestring budget in just
17 days and that’s why it was very important
to find a common language in advance. So we
were in close contact for a long time until we
actually started shooting and worked on the
scenes until the very end. It was a very special
and rewarding collaboration with the two of
them.
Would you say that the small budget and the
small team lead to a more focussed work?
No, I do not think so. A small budget is always a juggling act and with Formentera it
luckily worked out. But only because everybody involved knew in advance what they
were letting themselves in for. As a team we
worked together just wonderfully.
In general I prefer working with small teams.
I can work in a more focussed way. While
shooting we never had the feeling that we
ran out of time or we did not have enough
people on the crew. The production somehow managed to make everybody feel that
nothing was missing. Torsten Minack, our
cook, played a decisive part in that...
Which part does the producer play in the creative part of filmmaking?
A big part in this case. Without Titus the film
would never have been made and without
him I couldn’t have made the film the way I
did. I think our collaboration is what you call
a dream.
Statement Sabine Timoteo
If I think of Formentera I see two people, their
faces next to each other and nested into each
other, their hair moving in the wind. Together,
yet each one for his or her own. Two people...
I thought you were like me and me like you...
I thought I knew who you were and thus who
I am. Don’t destroy what I believe. Don’t take
away this wonderful illusion. This is what
comes to my mind if you ask me about “Formentera”, about Ben and Nina.
Statement Thure Lindhardt
I‘m playing Ben in Formentera, a modern man,
divided between the woman he loves and the
dreams he has. He‘s a man who faces adulthood, growing up, letting go of his childhood
dreams, and finding out that life as an adult
maybe isn‘t that bad at all.
When I read the script I was very fascinated by
the gentleness, the softness in the characters.
There is a deep love between them, but also
some great challenges, and it‘s a dream for an
actor to play parts like this.
And: I know this wasn‘t a question so I‘ll ask
myself : How was it to work with Ann-Kristin
Reyels? : I looooove working with her, she
is so sweet, gentle, respectful, listening and
cool. Let‘s make ten more movies together,
and with Sabine as well please! :-))))
Formentera describes the quiet and steady
path of two people through a world that could
be a dream world. But as they are not feeling
free themselves this freedom is like a prison
to them. Not a lot seems at stake, yet maybe
everything. For Ann-Kristin the island was always both – a prison and a place where you
dream about freedom. We tried to preserve
this juxtaposition in everything that we did.
All in all I think that our efforts were quite
brave. Little money and thus very little time
meant that we had to shoot in a very decisive manner. It wasn’t possible to make safety
shots. We didn’t shoot scenes and shots unless we were certain that they would be essential for the film. As a result, I think, we
have found a clear and simple way of telling
the story, which, to my mind is the strength
of the film.
Statement Titus Kreyenberg
Ann-Kristin and I sat together at the Berlinale
2011 in order to discuss the project. And without really loosing too many words we agreed
to go for it. Three months later we were shooting in the middle of the blue Mediterranean
sea. We worked incredibly hard but at the
same time it felt like a gift and still does. So
many talented people came together on the
film and helped crafting the vision of a simple, but deeply touching story. Although AnnKristin hadn’t worked with most of the crew
before, we hit it from the start and had the
most wonderful time, because we loved what
we were doing and because Ann-Kristin is the
most intuitive and sincere director I ever had
the pleasure of working with. But it wasn’t for
her and the crew alone: Sabine and Thure,
Vicky and Franc, Christian and Tatja, Ilse and
Geoffrey, who were the backbone of it all,
lending their talent to the film. And of course
there was Finn, who played Yoko –he was the
king of the world, a big man, amongst grownups. And last but not least there are three
great people sitting at ZDF and ARTE, Anne,
Christian and Georg, who did not stop pushing
us and the film for the better. I am convinced
that our experiences have been concentrated
in an entertaining and enriching film that truly
moves people.
technical data
92 mins
colour
dcp / 1:1.85
German with English subtitles
unafilm
Titus Kreyenberg was an executive producer
for film and television for many years before
he founded his own production company unafilm in 2004. unafilm produces uncompromising and artistically ambitious feature films for
cinema. unafilm produces fiction and documentaries for the international market.
The company’s films compete in internationally acknowledged film festivals around the
world, Berlinale, Toronto, IDFA, Thessaloniki,
San Sebastian, DOKLeipzig, Diagonale among
them. The German-Swiss coproduction “Colours in the Dark” achieved a major success
in German cinemas, the German-Turkish Coproduction “Our Grand Despair” premiered in
Competition of Berlinale 2011. The Cologne
and Berlin–based unafilm is an active member of ACE, the German Producers Alliance
and AG DOK.
contact
unafilm: Berlin
Bozener Straße 13 – 14
D – 10825 Berlin
+49 30 6630 7220
wwww.unafilm.de
www.formentera-the-movie.com