23/11/2005

Dani Levy realized he had made a controversial film, but when the head of the German Jewish community, Paul Spiegel, saw Go For Zucker! [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (o.t. Alles auf Zucker!) then came back to see it two more times, recommending it to his friends, the director let out a sight of relief. After the Rabbi, 1.4 million Germans lined up to laugh at the clash between the Zuckermann brothers, one an Orthodox Jew, the other a Communist, gambler and womanizer. The film cost less than 1.5m euro to make and has grossed approximately 10m in Germany alone. It has been sold to numerous countries, will soon be released in the US and is coming out this week in Italian cinemas, distributed initially on 20 screens by Lady Film.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

In Rome to present the film, Dani Levy said "there is a part of the Jewish community that wonders if making fun of Jews is allowed. They’re afraid it may present a danger because it fuels anti-Semitism. I’m part of a new generation, I didn’t experience the Holocaust, but I think that 60 years of depicting Jews as victims of history are more than enough. There is a long tradition of Jewish humour that brings to light weaknesses and contradictions." The film has become a cultural phenomenon in Germany "because people laughed and loved the characters. They liked my way of presenting a Jewish family: not ideal, but real. People discovered something different under its surface, as happened with Goodbye Lenin! [+see also:
trailer
interview: Wolfgang Becker
film profile]."

The film’s entire production budget came from television: Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), Westdeutcher Rundfunk (WDR) and Arte, with X-Filme Creative Pool, the company founded by Levy along with partners Wolfgang Becker (Goodbye Lenin) and Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run ).

(Translated from Italian)