00:27This is Tim Wassberg from Fest Track on Surf TV.
00:29I'm here in Toronto, Ontario for the Toronto Film Festival.
00:49You know, everything starts with the idea that I didn't want to make a war movie.
00:58So that was for me the first thing that I am not such a fan of war movies.
01:03And I asked myself, what can I add?
01:05And then I'm really interested in the psychology.
01:10And how is it possible that or what's happened when the protective zone of a community collapsed?
01:17And how do people behave in this kind of extreme situation?
01:21And so I started with, yeah, I read a book from Florian Huber.
01:26It's 10 years ago.
01:27Child Promise Me to Kill Yourself.
01:29And it's inspired me and gives me, yeah, yeah, the feeling that it was, yeah, I forgot a story to
01:39tell.
01:39Because my grandmother told me some stories about corpses floating down the river when I was a little child.
01:48And she...
01:49Was she near the border or where was she?
01:51She was in East Germany.
01:53It was East Germany where I grew up.
01:56And this time it sounds for me like a horror story.
02:01But then I read the book from Florian Huber and recognize it was a problem all around in Germany.
02:07So, so, so, and that everything starts there.
02:10And then I make some research and, and, and, and find interesting words.
02:15For example, you know, they have all the special words like a hero cult or death cult or a cadaver
02:22gehorsam, for example.
02:24Yeah, yeah, it's cadaver gehorsam.
02:25It means there's no English translation.
02:28It means to behave like a dead piece of meat.
02:32Okay.
02:32So, that the people were trained from the government or from the state to behave or behave without the will,
02:42just function in the body and don't ask any questions.
02:47So, this means the, and this was for me a red line to, to, to try to understand these people
02:54in this period shortly before the wars.
02:56And, and, and also the question, um, yeah, how is it possible the war is ending and they, they, they,
03:02they start to kill themselves.
03:04So, that was the main entrance.
03:08Die Liebe höre niemals auf.
03:10In guten wie in schlechten Zeiten.
03:14So seid ihr nun Mann und Frau.
03:27Die Krieg kommt ein.
03:28What did that take?
03:29Obviously you're a couple generations removed from that, but what did you have to do psychologically, physically to get into
03:36her head?
03:37Maybe to start with, Gritta stayed with me for a long time and her emotions did.
03:44And I felt quite wounded after our shooting, to be honest, because it was really heavy to deal with all
03:55those questions.
03:56And I really asked myself, what are humans actually capable of?
04:00Um, but let me unpack that maybe a little bit, um, because I think I, I can draw some parallels
04:14to nowadays.
04:16Um, because I guess we are also feeling that danger is drawing ever closer, whether we name it climate change
04:29or AI.
04:30Or the, the, the rise of fascism.
04:35So, I think we're kind of paralyzed as well, because if we're really honest, we, and if we would really,
04:46um,
04:47saw the problem in detail or the danger, which is approaching unstoppably, we would have to, to fight every day.
04:59And we don't do, do we?
05:01I think we, so in a political way.
05:05So, I think there was something very, very, um, contemporary about it.
05:12So, that was my approach.
05:14And then again, of course, I, I, I did a lot of research, but, um, my objective is to go
05:21from the inner, from the into the outside.
05:24So, I asked myself questions like, what would Rita's life be if the war hadn't happened, for example?
05:35And when does she realize that something is really going off the rails and how does this affect her life?
05:44But, coming back to what you asked me in the first place, there is this parallel.
05:50So, I could approach this character in, in, in, in, in not an easy way, but, somehow, it was clear
06:01to me.
06:19In war, war, and everything, the extraordinary becomes normal.
06:23We talk about AI, we talk about these things.
06:25And these things will become a part of life, uh, whether we want them to or not.
06:31Now, the idea here is the notion of fate, is that, you know, the policy that was implemented, it, it,
06:38the problem is, it's hard to say yes or no.
06:40It's not about choice, it's about survival.
06:43Yeah.
06:43Could you talk about that and finding sort of that, because there's a sense of dread that overtakes the film
06:48on purpose.
06:49It was an approach for me to, to bring it in contrast and also was the question, um, uh, one
06:58approach that we, uh, the cinematographer and I, we try to find an epic way, don't exhibit the, the, the
07:09suffer, suffering.
07:10So, so, so, so how we can bring it in balance, you know, this, how we can show this, this
07:19dark side of, uh, humanity.
07:22So, and so, uh, yeah, uh, it was approach to, to bring it in contrast.
07:30You know, I like to puzzle and I want the audience that they have the chance to decode something.
07:38You, you can bring your own interpretation inside and I like to work with some builds and everything has a,
07:44has a, a meaning, you know, everything is very, also the details.
07:49And so I try to, to combine it in a way, but it's also, uh, to bring everything in a
07:55kind of claustrophobic, uh, mood.
07:58Okay.
07:58So, uh, it's going deeper and deeper and deeper and darker.
08:03Yeah, so it's, there is not that much hopes, but we have our wonderful character who brings it up and
08:09gives some lights in the story.
08:22That was quite important for me as well, because I think through all the times people were just living.
08:29And, um, therefore I wrote a biography for my character and, uh, as I said before, just asked myself, what
08:40would Greta have been like if the war hadn't happened?
08:43And I thought she would, yeah, I, I thought she would, she would be, uh, she was, she, she would
08:49like to be a young woman.
08:51She's, she, she, she, she, she's, um, sensual, she's alive, she's a little bit clumsy.
08:57We had fun in shaping her.
08:59And I also thought that maybe she was in love with her husband and they, he promised to marry her
09:07when he comes back from war.
09:10And so that posthume marriage made it even worse and more incapable.
09:40And so that posthume marriage made it even worse and more incapable.
09:53So, and it's also, uh, um, it, um, um, it looks like a little bit.
09:54Okay.
09:54One, two, three, three, four, five, five, five, six, five, one, four, five, six, seven, seven, seven, eight, eight, six,
09:55seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven.
10:16One, two, five, five.
10:16One, two, six, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, nine.
