26/06/2018 - German Films interviewed Ina Weisse, who is now preparing to shoot for her second feature, Das Vorspiel, starring Nina Hoss

Ina Weisse has cultivated another string to her bow as a screenwriter and director with a handful of shorts, the debut feature The Architect [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the documentary Die Neue Nationalgalerie, and a second feature set to go into production this autumn, The Audition [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ina Weisse
interview: Ina Weisse
film profile]. 

“I had made short films as a child together with my father during the school holidays,“ Weisse recalls. “My father was a passionate filmmaker with his 8mm camera – the films he made about the time working with Mies van der Rohe appear in my documentary on the Neue Nationalgalerie – and so it was only natural for me to want to work with the visual medium. What’s more, I was an avid cinema-goer as a child and would regularly go to the [now closed] Studio Cinema at Adenauerplatz as well as the Bali in Zehlendorf.“

“I had already tried my hand at making shorts in the past, but it had always been a plan of mine to go to film school to learn the craft on a daily basis over two years,“ she explains. “It was a great experience and preparation for what I wanted to do later on.“ 

Indeed, Weisse made an impact with her graduation film Alles Anders, which won the First Steps Award in 2002. And it was this film which caught the attention of Wim Wenders who recommended Weisse as a highly promising talent to his then partner at Reverse Angle Pictures, Peter Schwarzkopff, to work together on her feature debut.

The result in 2008 was The Architect. This debut marked her first collaboration with the Greek-born screenwriter Daphne Charizani who is a director in her own right with such credits as the documentary Make Up and the fiction feature Madrid. “We met through a common friend and it didn’t take long before we knew that we were on the same wavelength and shared similar interests,“ she recalls. “That makes things so much easier when you know that both of you are thinking in the same direction. I like working with a co-author because there’s the danger of just going around in circles when you are writing alone. Of course, there are times when you have to work on your own on a screenplay, but I like this kind of working partnership.“ 

In fact, the collaboration went so well between Weisse and Charizani that they have been working together on her second feature film project, The Audition, which will see Nina Hoss cast as a violin teacher in conflict with her profession.

“Music played an important role in The Architect and it will be at the centre of my new project,“ Weisse explains. “What fascinates me is the process of how music is created. The husband of Nina Hoss’ character is a violin maker, so this will be an opportunity to show how sounds evolve.“

The Audition is being produced by the up-and-coming producer Felix von Boehm’s Berlin/Heidelberg-based company Lupa Film, whose recent credits include Karim Ainouz’s award-winning documentary Central Aiport THF [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Karim Aïnouz
film profile] and Joya Thome’s debut The Queen of Niendorf. Weisse had previously worked with von Boehm on her documentary Die Neue Nationalgalerie. 

Since the film is being planned as a German-French co-production with Pierre-Olivier Bardet’s Idéale Audience, it was fortuitous that von Boehm had grown up in France and can speak French fluently. “Felix is brimming with energy and full of ideas which is really quite refreshing,“ Weisse continues. “And he was the one who introduced me to Margaret Ménégoz who is set to handle the distribution of the film in France.“

Raising the finance for the film wasn’t a walk in the park, she admits, but Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the FFA-CNC Mini-traité and broadcaster ZDF are already on board, and other partners are now likely to follow to close the financing so that principal photography can begin this October in Berlin.

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