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BetaSeries
  • 20/06/2024
L'un des co-créateurs de Helgoland 513, la nouvelle dystopie allemande, était au festival de télévision de Monte Carlo 2024.

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Transcription
00:00ORIGINALS, ORIGINALS. Discover in preview our interviews on the series that make the news.
00:07BETASERIES, Media Partner of the Montecarlo Television Festival 2024.
00:15Hello, we are live from the Montecarlo Television Festival,
00:19of which BETASERIES is a new partner for this 2024 edition.
00:23I have the pleasure of interviewing this morning
00:26Florian Wensch, who is the creator of the competition series ELGOLAND 513.
00:56What is ELGOLAND 513?
01:27Yes, it is a post-apocalyptic themed show,
01:30and we had a virus outbreak, a global pandemic,
01:34which maybe some people might know about.
01:37But we have a very different virus,
01:40and our people on this island try to shut off the island.
01:44They try to stay isolated so that the virus cannot catch up to the island.
01:49Right, so many elements. Before we go into more details,
01:52when did you have this idea? Is it alone?
01:56Did you pitch that to a producer, or how did it work?
02:01Because you are the creator, right?
02:03Yes, I am one of the creators, together with Veronica Prifra and Robert Schwenke.
02:07It was a longer development story.
02:10I pitched it back in my film school days to my student colleague Veronica,
02:16and then we pitched our idea to the UFO Fiction Company.
02:20And then Robert Schwenke was interested,
02:23and after he came on board, we created our series, Bible,
02:28and created all our screenplays.
02:31And then, luckily, Sky came on board, and then we were ready to shoot.
02:35So it has been a collective writing.
02:38Did you carry a specific subject?
02:42Because there are many themes in this series, and it's a long series.
02:46So can you tell us a bit how you got yourself organized,
02:51between the three of you?
02:53It was great teamwork, I have to say.
02:56I think we all had the same ideas, and we were interested in the same stuff.
03:01But it was mostly about the scarcity of resources,
03:05it's the main theme, I would say,
03:07but also the society that is driven by fear,
03:10and also about the idea that humans are able to justify very bad things
03:17just to get it done.
03:20And we tried to pinpoint that out in our series.
03:24So there is, and I'm not spoiling, from episode 1, at the very beginning,
03:28there is a rule, a strange and awful rule on this island,
03:32and the baseline of the series is
03:34Jedes Leben zählt, every life counts.
03:39Toute le vie compte.
03:41So what is this rule?
03:43Is it a fundamental plot, a narrative element in the plot?
03:48Yeah, the idea is that on our island 513 people can survive,
03:54so that means that if a baby is born and there are 514 people,
04:00then one person has to go.
04:02And this is quite hard.
04:04And then the people on the island, the society,
04:06has to decide who is the most useless person on the island.
04:11And this person has actually to die.
04:14So with a system of points, you know, evaluation of people.
04:18Yeah, it's like a huge social ranking.
04:22But it's a social ranking, but you don't have a lot of technologies.
04:27It's in 2034, but we don't see screens.
04:30It's a bit like a retro-futurist show, or how you call that?
04:34Yeah, I would say it's a retro-futuristic show.
04:38Well, the idea was that, you know, it's like 15 years in the future,
04:42and that they cannot repair so many things.
04:46And then we thought, okay, which would be the things that would still work,
04:50that would be easy to maintain?
04:52And then we kind of went back and we were like,
04:54okay, it must be a society that has stepped back,
04:57but these things they can maintain themselves without help from the outside.
05:02So probably you did write it during the COVID times a bit,
05:06and now it's also a lot about war and fear of losing our democracy in Europe
05:12and all these subjects.
05:13This is also the core subject of the series, how to rule people,
05:18how to accept rules from the society.
05:22Were you influenced by the news or by some existing series, books, films,
05:30to write Algoland?
05:33Well, actually, mostly I would say by the news of the time from 2015 on,
05:38when there was like this, in Germany we call it like the refugee crisis,
05:42which were very powerful and sad images,
05:45and I think this was like the starting point.
05:47And then Germany, people changed a little bit,
05:50and there was like a huge divide,
05:52and people were also during COVID driven by fear,
05:57and we wanted to show how this society would develop.
06:01That is mostly driven by fear,
06:03but this is actually, you cannot see it in the first episodes,
06:06but everything will work out in the end,
06:10and you will see how the society changed.
06:12You have, it's very cinematographic as well,
06:15because when people die, there is some kind of a ceremony.
06:19I will not spoil, but from the very beginning,
06:22you are in a specific universe.
06:25Did you have some recommendation for the DOP or for the director?
06:31To have also some kind of a scenography,
06:34how to put that in place,
06:36how do you represent the arena, how you film it?
06:39Well, I mean, we have the great director Robert Schwenke,
06:43he is like a super experience,
06:46and he has done so many big movies,
06:48and I think from the beginning on,
06:50he really knew how to capture these intense series,
06:54how to put it into images,
06:56and I think he was quite sure what to do from the beginning on.
07:00Yeah, we can feel that,
07:02it's very homogenous in what you tell and what we see.
07:05In terms of casting, you have many people,
07:09because this island is, I mean, you have 513 people.
07:12One of them is Alexander Felling,
07:15who plays a very important guy
07:18that has to be on the list somewhere,
07:21I'm not spoiling.
07:22Did you have the cast in mind already,
07:25or did it come after the writing?
07:27No, it came after the writing.
07:30I mean, everything was developing quite a lot,
07:35so it was not like we were writing for someone in the beginning.
07:38We were super happy that we could get these great actors.
07:41But on the other hand, I think it was like that Robert Schwenke,
07:45he has long working relationships with some actors,
07:49and I think in the back of his mind,
07:51maybe he knew earlier than us who he was thinking about,
07:54but actually I think we just cast who we thought
07:57would be right for the roles, yes.
07:59Of course.
08:00Is it a series, it's 10 episodes, right?
08:06Seven.
08:07Seven episodes.
08:08Okay, so seven episodes.
08:10Is it, at the end, you know, do we expect a season two,
08:14or is it a mini-series,
08:16and the story is covered in these seven episodes?
08:19Very good question.
08:20Well, in the end, I mean,
08:22we tell our stories in the seven episodes,
08:24but, you know, we also give hints for the future,
08:27so I'd say there is some unfinished business.
08:31Okay, so you leave the door open.
08:33I mean, we would love to do another show,
08:36another season, yes, of course.
08:39Before we leave, apart from Elgoland,
08:41what series would you recommend us to watch these days?
08:46Oh, very good question.
08:48Well, oh my God, I love so many different shows.
08:51Yeah, it's a difficult question.
08:52I'm one who's, like, into everything, actually,
08:54just from what I saw,
08:56the last thing I saw, actually,
08:57was the newest Bridgerton season,
09:00which I liked a lot, I have to say,
09:02but maybe this is something completely different than Elgoland.
09:07But, of course, just when you think about influences
09:09and something which everybody always mentions,
09:12and what I really, really like,
09:13it's also like the Black Mirror, for example,
09:16which is also…
09:17Coming back to dystopia.
09:18Coming back to dystopia,
09:19and I think there will be new episodes out soon.
09:22So, yeah, so we're looking forward to watch that,
09:24and Bridgerton, effectively,
09:25is in the tops already on Betaseries.
09:28So thank you so much, Florian.
09:30Very interesting.
09:31Again, we cross fingers for tonight
09:33at the award ceremony.
09:34We wish you good luck,
09:35and maybe we have you soon on Betaseries
09:37for another project of yours.
09:39Thank you so much.
09:40Thank you.
09:41Thank you very much.
09:42Thank you very much.
09:44Originos.
09:45Originos.
09:46Discover our interviews
09:48on the series that make the news.
09:50Betaseries.
09:51Media partner of the Montecarlo TV Festival 2024.