PICTURE TREE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS Original Title: Enfant Terrible Genre: Biopic Length: 134 Minutes Country/Year of Production: 2020 Domestic Release: October 1st, 2020 - Weltkino Filmverleih Film Website: www.picturetree-international.com/films/details/enfant-terrible.html Director: Screenplay: Klaus Richter Cinematography: Carl-Friedrich Koschnick Editing: Hansjörg Weißbrich Sound: Andreas Wölki Music: Producers: Markus Zimmer, Stefan Arndt, Uwe Schott Production Company: Bavaria Filmproduktion, X Filme Creative Pool, WDR, BR, World Sales: Picture Tree International Funding: Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, [email protected] Medienboard -Brandenburg, Deutscher Filmförderfonds www.picturetree-international.com

2 SYNOPSIS

When 22-year-old storms the stage of the ‘Antitheater’ (Anti-Theatre) in Munich, 1967 and seizes the theatre production without further ado, nobody suspects this brazen nobody to become one of the most important post-war German filmmakers. His passionate and driven character swiftly attracts a bunch of dedicated admirers made up of actors, narcis- sists and suitors. As if he senses his limited life span, he almost frantically creates film after film. While Fass- PRESS NOTE binder radically pursues his creative vision and views of society and people, he polarises professionally and pri- ENFANT TERRIBLE is a dedication by the director Oskar vately. Despite early setbacks, many of his films break- Roehler (ELEMENTARTEILCHEN, DIE UNÜTÜHRBARE) to the through at the most renowned films festivals and are film icon Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With an elaborate color hailed and hated by audience, critics and fellow film- and light dramaturgy and exceptional backdrops, Roehler ap- proaches and merges with Fassbinder’s universe. In an episod- makers. His anger and his longing for love as well as his ic fashion, he tells the artist’s life and displays Fassbinder’s self-exploitation, which he also imposes on everyone entire spectrum: from an ingenious director, to a desperate around him, have made him the most memorable and seeker of love up to a relentless victimizer. Roehler can com- radical film director, an enfant terrible. pletely rely on his charismatic leading actor: Oliver Masucci not only impersonates the famous filmmaker, he becomes one with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. ENFANT TERRIBLE was produced by Bavaria Filmproduktion in co-production with X Filme Creative Pool, WDR, BR and Arte and was funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Deutscher Filmförderfonds, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

3 ABOUT Statement

I felt like Klaus Richter: the first film I saw, and I soon went to the places where I could be was “Händler der vier Jahreszeiten”, I was 12 close to my idol and his stars, , at the time, and there was a home cinema in Kurt Raab, and many more, the boarding school that could accommodate who got drunk in the bar and in the Ber- about 20 people. This film pierced the heart of muda Triangle around Savignyplatz and where my twelve-year-old self like a bullet. From then they celebrated their extravagant parties, and on I sat and waited for the next Fassbinder “pressed my nose against the glass” because film to be released. And the wait was not long. I didn’t dare to go in at first. I later got to know Almost every six months, new, small, partly bi- some of them and had the honor of shooting zarre, partly deep films were published, which with them himself. aimed their distorting mirror at If anyone has transgressed society, the petty-bourgeois, What made Fassbinder and his friends so fa- original reactionary, Germans mous and notorious was the fact that they the conventional borders of of the early 1970s, which I at had managed to mix up the cultural landscape German narrative cinema, 12-, 13-, 14-year-old could then with their poisonous cocktail of most differ- takeaway deeply impressed by ent films, so much so that international fame it is Fassbinder. That makes their impact on me. It was a had already dawned on them. They were a him stand out uniquely German reality that I had never gay group of gamblers, thesbians, and part- sharp and dazzling. seen before and that I had nev- time actors who achieved this, a colorful er thought about. Fassbinder’s bunch that came from everywhere: the deep- films gave me the tools and the est Bavarian province to the original stars of means to do so. As a result, I started my first the UFA. The big shot amongst them, young attempt at writing early on. These films were Fassbinder, was the only rock star in German a great blessing within the deserted film in- Cinema at the time as well as to this day, who dustry of Germany. And when I went to Berlin ultimately only appeared in sunglasses with at 19-years-old on the hunt of the collapsing mirrored glass, completely dressed in leather modern structures and that legendary Fass- and a poker face, always flanked by two body- binder, who was still almost a professional guards, also dressed in leather. He got away youth at the time, he was in his mid-thirties, with devastating hotel rooms in Cannes, ap-

4 pointing stars and dropping others and even- sonally and with German society, that a single no retreat where he could have crawled like tually ended up destroying his own life with life, however intense, simply wasn’t enough. the others. Art and life were completely inter- everyone watching. He brought the eccen- The big circus, the limelight, the drugs, the twined. tricity and the liberation of the gay avant-gar- legends he created finally devoured him. de scene into German cinema and into the For me, he was a comet in the night-sky of He was a very young man with great wisdom German cultural scene, even with the many Berlin, a bright neon sign fluttering in the and humor. He was the unique, the formative films that had nothing to do with this topic, wind, a monolith that invented bright colors among German film directors and authors. to symbolize, aestheticize and at the same to stage itself, but which was actually made Everything for art and living as if there was time update the form. The topics were always of the cold, gray bedrock of post-war German no tomorrow. Living by this motto means not new and contemporary with the really good society. With all the dark thoughts, the pessi- getting old. Fassbinder was spared the hassle films. His melodrama “In a year with thirteen mism, the self-doubts that went with it. Every of being a veteran, just repeating himself and moons” was unique, it played with poetic and broken hero of his stories who perished him- doing boring stuff. He died at the height of his theatrical means and exaggerated them. Fass- self was a fragment of Fassbinder. And with creative glory - at the age of 37. binder originally came from the theatre world, each of them he died a little more. In the end THE DIRECTOR and you could tell. He told social parablesin he died like real rock and rollers do, burned as strict a manner as Brecht. Mother Küster is out with his life in shards and extremely lone- just one example. ly. He burned friendships in the furnace of his Fassbinder had the kind of rock and roll in his productivity and moved on. “Corpses paved” blood which you can’t buy. He made every- his way. We owe 39 films to him. Everything one famous. And fame was important too – to was there: from the breathtaking melodrama gain fame from an outsider position through to wonderful evil black comedies to the great ingenuity and to get into the key position of in- social dramas. Every film was different, al- ternational cinematic attention. Andy Warhol, most every film a surprise. He was not infal- Jane Fonda, Dirk Bogarde. He searched ever lible. It wasn’t his aim to make perfect films. higher, his films became increasingly hermet- He was too impulsive for that, ultimately too ic and crazier, and he himself progressively emotional. He had to put life in order to make broke. He had so much to work through per- these real-life films. That was the crux. He had

5 2020 ENFANT TERRIBLE (Director) 2018 OUTMASTERED () (Director) 2015 PUNK BERLIN (TOD DEN HIPPIES!! ES LEBE DER PUNK) (Screenwriter & Director) BIOGRAPHY 2013 (QUELLEN DES LEBENS) (Screenwriter & Director) 2010 JEW SUSS (JUD SÜSS! – FILM OHNE GEWISSEN) (Director) Oskar Roehler started his career as a screenwriter and had In Competition at Berlinale his breakthrough with his second feature NO PLACE TO 2009 LULU & JIMI (Screenwriter & Director) GO (DIE UNBERÜHRBARE; 2000), a very personal portrait 2006 ATOMISED (ELEMENTARTEILCHEN) (Screenwriter & Director) of his mother, which premiered in Cannes (Director’s Fort- In Competition at Berlinale night) and received the (Lola) for best Nominated for the Audience Prize of the European Film Prize film. His other award winning films include ANGST (DER ALTE 2003 (AGNES UND SEINE BRÜDER) AFFE ANGST, 2003 – Berlinale Official Competition), AGNES (Screenwriter & Director) AND HIS BROTHERS (AGNES UND SEINE BRÜDER; 2004 – Best Screenplay at the Bavarian Film Prize Venice Orizzonti) as well as his film adaptation of Michel 2002 ANGST (DER ALTE AFFE ANGST) (Screenwriter & Director) Houellebecq’s novel ELEMENTARY PARTICLES (ELEMEN- In Competition at Berlinale TARTEILCHEN; 2006 – Berlinale Official Competition). With 2002 FAHR ZUR HÖLLE, SCHWESTER! (Director) JEW SUSS: RISE AND FALL (JUD SÜSS – FILM OHNE GEWIS- 2001 SUCK MY DICK (Screenwriter & Director) SEN; 2010 – Berlinale Official Competition) Oskar created 2000 NO PLACE TO GO (DIE UNBERÜHRBARE) (Screenwriter & Director) one of his most polarizing films. After SOURCES OF LIFE (DIE Best Film at German Film Prize QUELLEN DES LEBENS; 2012 – Karlovy Vary Official Compe- 1999 GIERIG (Screenwriter & Director) tition) and his ‘Master and Servant’ portrait OUTMASTERED 1997 IN WITH THE NEW (SILVESTER COUNTDOWN) (HERRLICHE ZEITEN; 2018), ENFANT TERRIBLE is Oskar’s (Screenwriter & Director) latest film and homage to one of the most legendary and rad- Fund Prize German Film for Direction at Munich IFF ical German Filmmakers - Rainer Werner Fassbinder. 1995 GENTLEMAN (Screenwriter & Director) FILMOGRAPHY

6 7 Frida-Lovisa Erdal Yildiz (Gudrun) Hamann (Martha) (Brigitte Mira) (Salem)

Oliver Masucci Isolde Barth Jochen Schropp Alexander Scheer Michael Klammer (Rainer Werner) (Rainer’s mother) (Armin) (Andy Warhol) (Günther) CAST

Lucas Gregorowicz Anton Rattinger André Hennicke Désirée Nick (Ulli) (Britta) (Transvestite) (Bärbel)

8 Sunnyi Melles Felix Hellmann Michael Ostrowski Antoine Monot Jr. Meike Droste Detlef Bothe (Veronika) (Harry) (Peter Chatel) (Peter Berling) (Ursel) (Wally)

Markus Hering Norbert Ghafouri Simon Böer Ingo van Gulijk Christian Berkel (Peer) (Dietrich) (Mike) (Director of Photography) (Interviewer)

Götz Otto Ralf Richter Wilson Gonzalez (Jack Palance) (Blumenpeter) (Raoul)

9 10 OLIVER MASUCCI

The German actor Oliver Masucci grew up in ly, he played alongside Tom Schilling, Paula DARK by Baran bo Odar, the first German Net- Bonn. He studied acting at the University of Beer and Sebastian Koch in the Oscar®-nom- flix series, since 2017. Masucci later played the Arts in Berlin and then started a success- inated drama NEVER LOOK AWAY (WERK in the ZDF three-part PREIS DER FREIHEIT ful theater career: from Basel (1995) to the OHNE AUTOR) (2018) by Florian Henckel (2019) alongside Nadja Uhl, Barbara Auer and Schauspielhaus (1996–2002), the von Donnersmarck. At the same time he Nicolette Krebitz, in the television film PLAY Munich Kammerspiele (2001), the Schauspiel also starred in the feature films PLAYMAKER (2019) by Philip Koch and took on an epi- Hannover (2000–2005), the Schauspielhaus (SPIELMACHER) (2018) by Timon Modersohn sode lead in the successful series SHADES Bochum (2003-2005), the Schauspielhaus with Frederick Lau and Antje Traue and in OF GUILT (SCHULD) (2015-2019) with Moritz Zürich (2005-2009) and the Salzburg Festival OUTMASTERED (HERRLICHE ZEITEN) (2018) Bleibtreu . Oliver Masucci is currently film- (1999 and 2007) until he reached the Vienna by Oskar Roehler, for which he was again ing DIE SCHACHNOVELLE directed by Phillip Burgtheater. Here Masucci was an established nominated for the German Film Award. Stölzl. member of the ensemble from 2009 to 2015.

The charismatic actor had his breakthrough in cinema in 2015 in the satirical role of Adolf AS RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER Hitler in the bestselling adaptation LOOK WHO’S BACK (ER IST WIEDER DA) by David Wnendt. The comedy was not only successful In 2016 Oliver Massucci took on the role of at the box office, critics also praised the film, Ugly Joey in Phillip Stölzl’s elaborate three- and Oliver Masucci was delighted to be nomi- part Winnetou reissue WINNETOU – DER nated for the German Film Award. MYTHOS LEBT and was seen in Sherry Hor- mann’s two-part political thriller TÖDLICHE Masucci was last seen in the cinema in Caro- GEHEIMNISSE. He was in front of the cam- line Link’s adaptation of the youth book WHEN era in 2017 and 2018 for the award-winning HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT (ALS HITLER DAS German television series 4 BLOCKS. Masucci ROSA KANINCHEN STAHL) (2019). Previous- has contributed as one of the main actors in

11 ABOUT Bavaria Film GmbH

Bavaria Film in Munich, Germany is one of 1971), Bob Fosse (CABARET, 1972), Ingmar Europe ’s largest film and television pro- Bergman (THE SERPENT’S EGG, 1977), Robert duction companies. Alfred Hitchcock shot Aldrich (Twilight’s Last Gleaming, 1977), Wolf- his first film, THE PLEASURE GARDEN, at gang Petersen (ENEMY MINE, 1985), Claude Bavaria in 1925. The studios have been Chabrol (THE BRIDESMAID, 2004), and Oliver used by numerous directors, including Elia Stone (THE SNOWDEN FILES, 2015). Bavaria Kazan (MAN ON A TIGHTROPE, 1952), Max Film is known for television films such as Ophüls (LOLA MONTÈS, 1955), Stanley Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXAN- Kubrick (PATHS OF GLORY, 1957), Richard DERPLATZ (1980) and Wolfgang Petersen’s Fleischer (THE VIKINGS, 1958), John Huston DAS BOOT (1981), both also shown theatrical- Producer’s Statement: (FREUD: THE SECRET PASSION, 1962), Rob- ly. Also other production companies have pro- Markus Zimmer ert Siodmak (THE NINA B. AFFAIR, 1960), Billy duced films in the Bavaria studios, Wilder (ONE, TWO, THREE, 1961 and FEDORA , including Constantin Film, for exam- 1978), John Sturges (THE GREAT ESCAPE, ple for Petersen’s THE NEVEREND- “Bavaria Filmproduktion is proud to 1963), Robert Wise (THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ING STORY (1984), Oliver Hirsch- present two of the greatest German 1965), Orson Welles (THE DEEP, 1967), Jerzy biegel’s DOWNFALL (2004) and film icons in one film: Rainer Werner Skolimowski (DEEP END, 1970), Mel Stuart Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: THE STORY (WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, OF A MURDERER (2006). Fassbinder, whose work remains influ- ential to filmmakers all over the world, and Oskar Roehler, one of the most inventive film and writing talents this country has ever produced. ENFANT TERRIBLE is both an homage to and an analysis of a manic film director, THE PRODUCER visually stunning and full of amazing performances, led by Oliver Masucci.”

12 Co-Producer X-FILME CREATIVE POOL

Together with the directors Wolfgang Becker, Dani Levy and Tom Tykwer, producer Ste- fan Arndt founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool in 1994. Great public and critical successes like Tykwer’s LOLA RENNT, Levy’s EVERYTHING ON ZUCKER or Beckers GOOD BYE, LENIN! paved the way for international co-productions under German leadership such as the multi-award- winning Michael Haneke productions DAS WEISSE BAND and AMOUR or Tom Tykwers and Lana & Andy Wachowski’s CLOUD ATLAS, the most expensive independently financed European film of all time. Stefan Arndt and Uwe Schott have been Managing Directors of X Filme since 2009.

13 HIS LIFE ABOUT

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (May 31, 1945 – ateur directing- scripting-acting efforts did cination on the women. A few weeks later, in June 10, 1982) was born into a cultured bour- Fass binder take lessons with a professional May 1968, the Action theater was disbanded geois family in the small Bavarian spa town acting studio, where he met , after its theatre was wrecked by one of its Bad Wörishofen. Raised by his mother as an his most important actress, who thanks to him founders, jealous of Fassbinder’s growing only child, the boy had only sporadic contact became an international star. It was through power within the group. It promptly reformed with his father, a doctor, after the divorce of Schygulla that Fassbinder turned his interest under Fassbinder’s command as the antite- his parents when he was five. Educated at a to the theatre. ater, which pursued an equally radical and fre- Rudolf Steiner elementary school and sub- quently provocative production policy. sequently in Munich and Augsburg, the city In 1967 Fassbinder joined the Munich of Bert Brecht, he left school before passing action-theater. He directed, acted in, and The years from 1969 to 1976 were Fassbind- any final examinations. A cinema addict (“five adapted anti-establishment plays for a tight- er’s most prodigious and prolific period. An times a week, often three films a day”) from ly knit group of young professionals, among outstanding career in the theatre (produc- a very early age, not least because his moth- them Peer Raben and Kurt Raab, who along tions in Munich, , Bochum, Nurnberg, er needed peace and quiet for her work as a with Schygulla and Hermann, became the Berlin, Hamburg and , where for two translator, “the cinema was the family life I most important members of his cinematic years he ran the “Theater am Turm” with Kurt never had at home.” stock company. Jean-Marie Straub directed Raab and Roland Petri) was a mere backdrop the action-theater in an eight-minute ver- for a seemingly unstoppable outpouring of Fassbinder made his first short films at the sion of Bruckner’s Krankheit der Jugend, us- films, tv film, adaptations, and even a TV va- age of twenty, persuading a male lover to fi- ing part of this stage production in his short riety show (in honour of Brigitte Mira). During nance them in exchange for leading roles. film DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN the same period, he also did radio plays and He also applied for a place at the Berlin Film UND DER ZUHÄLTER (1968), with Fassbinder took on roles in other director’s films, among School (dffb), but was refused. He acted in as the pimp. In 1968 Fassbinder directed the them the title part in Volker Schlöndorff’s both his early films: DER STADTSTREICHER first play written by himself, , a Brecht adaptation BAAL. By 1976 Fassbinder (The City Tramp), which also featured Irm Her- twenty-minute highly choreographed encoun- had become an international star. Prizes at mann (later often used in character roles); ter between Bavarian villagers and a foreign major film festivals, premieres and retrospec- and DAS KLEINE CHAOS (The Little Chaos). worker from Greece, who with scarcely a word tives in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and a In the latter, his mother – under the name of German, becomes the object of intense ra- first critical study on his work appearing in of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many cial, sexual, and political hatred among the London had made him a familiar name among parts in her son’s films. Only after these am- men, while exerting a strangely troubling fas- cinephiles and campus audiences the world

14 over. He rented a house in Paris and could be Germany itself Fassbinder was permanently they made, among others, the television se- seen in gay bars in New York, earning him cult in the news, making calculatedly provocative ries EIGHT HOURS DO NOT MAKE A DAY, and hero status but also a controversial reputation remarks in interviews, which nonetheless were in 1978 cowrote THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA in and out of his films. Art house circuits avidly usually shrewd and to the point. His work of- BRAUN, Fassbinder’s commercially most prof- took up his films: because he had so many to ten received mixed notices from the national itable film and the first in his post-war German his credit by the time he was ‘discovered’ with critics, many of whom only began to take Fass- trilogy (the other two were LOLA and VERONI- FEAR EATS THE SOUL, the rerelease of his ear- binder seriously after the foreign press had KA VOSS). For many foreign critics, his crown- lier films, together with the steady stream of hailed him as a genius. ing achievement was the 14-part television adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexander- platz , much maligned by the domestic press. Although for Fassbinder re- ceived the at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival, a much-coveted Oscar nomination eluded him. As had often been noted, Fass- RAINER WERNER binder was the engine and motor (the “heart” in Wolfram Schütte’s words) of the New Ger- man Cinema. His sudden death from a vicious combination of drugs and sleeping pills in June 1982 symbolically marked the end of the most FASSBINDER exciting and experimental period the German cinema had known since the 1920s.

new work, made his extraordinary productivity In 1972 Fassbinder began his collaboration seem even more phenomenal. (…) with a highly experienced and successful pro- Thomas Elsaesser His flamboyant and at the same time seedy ducer at West Germany’s most prestigious life-style, his openly displayed and well adver- television network, Peter Märtesheimer of tised homosexuality, and at the same time life WDR. Under Märtesheimer’s influence, Fass- and love to women, the scandals, public out- binder turned with even more determination to rages and bouts of self-pity ensured that in recognizably German subject matter. Together Source: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation Fassbinder Source: Rainer Werner 15 HIS ART

The Forward-looking Traditionalist

In the mid-1960s, when Bertolt Brecht’s Epic tors of the , could not labor of the studio system with the author’s Theater dominated the German-speaking have come about without the cooperation of personal creativity through an amalgamation stage, Max Frisch spoke of Brecht possess- the public television stations. Yet he, as did of group dynamics and individualistic work ing the “striking ineffectiveness of a classic.” no other, realized the implications of the spe- processes. He was producer-tycoon and star The playwright, who agitated for social change cifically German production situation. His ar- director all in one; and to feed the artistic in epic parables written for a “theater of the tistic productivity, which resulted in an oeuvre imagination that spurred him on, he needed scientific age,” was accepted by society and of forty-four film and television productions, to make sure that he kept both feet on the integrated into it, and was thus a classic: im- coincided with the vigorous appropriation and ground. This he first achieved with the team of mobilized. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who exploitation of every possible source he could the Action Theater, in the group which evolved attained comparable artistic status in the draw from. He alone gave exuberant life to the from it, and later in various teams of actors, German-language cinema between 1969 and declaration on which the Young and the New cinematographers, musicians, set designers, 1982, and whose public image dominated the German Cinema staked its claim, that “Opas and studios. scene during those fourteen years, neither be- Kino” (grandpa’s cinema) was dead. lf there The auteurist film, whose emergence accom- came a classic nor did he achieve outstanding was a German Autorenfilm (auteurist cinema) panied the decline ofthe “producer film” that success. But was he ineffective? – and certainly the genius-cult of West Ger- could no longer compete with television in the Looking down at the lamentable depth of con- man Sturm und Drang in the 1960s and 1970s domestic market, was unmistakably a harbin- temporary German cinema from the aesthetic did produce the works of Kluge and Wenders, ger of the antiauthoritarian movement and an summit of his late works, after the 1978 DE- Schroeter and von Praunheim, Herzog and expression ofthe international student and SPAIR, and from the paradigmatic validity of Syberberg, Thome and Straub – Fassbinder’s youth revolt, which in the Paris of May 1968 his “German” subjects, from KATZELMACHER far-reaching activities were at the center of it. had its storming of the Bastille and, shortly to VERONIKA VOSS, one will scarcely discern His genius – probably the only one of the post- after, its Thermidor and Waterloo. Euphoria anything in the ten years since he died except war German cinema – is evident not only in his over a new lifestyle was rapidly succeeded his disappearance: not only the dissolution of work but also in the freewheeling activity and by depression over its failure – more quickly, Fassbinder as a steady presence, somewhat inspirational vitality with which he combined in keeping with the modern process of accel- like the basso continuo in the polyphony of the film and film production, television and televi- eration, than at the turn of the eighteenth to German cinema that came after him, but the sion production into a comprehensive, always the nineteenth Century. The socialist-liber- general decline of all aesthetic principles that expanding, retrospective, and progressive al coalition; the ban on employment of rad- blossomed in the richness of his vast oeuvre. unity. His utopian vision, which he very nearly icals in state schools and public institutions Fassbinder’s oeuvre, like that of other direc- made come true, was to merge the division of in general; the German Director’s Theater of

16 Peter Stein, Claus Peymann, and Hans Neuen- whose character as a total work of art these (as a creative counterpart, for instance, of the fels; and the New German Cinema were par- directors evoked on stage; yet only with Fass- Döblinesque montage technique in BERLIN allel events, riddled by the ricochets of Baad- binder did the theater open its eyes wide, be- ALEXANDERPLATZ). This, in particular, made er-Meinhof terrorism. cause in his films it plays a vital role (as it does possible Fassbinder adaptations of literary in those of Visconti). sources (as with EFFI BRIEST, THE STATION- Rainer Werner Fassbinder, born in 1945, was With one other German-speaking artist, name- MASTER’S WIFE, ), where – each in not one of the initiators of the Oberhausen ly Peter Handke, whose often-professed love its own way – no residue of the adaptation pro- Manifesto. He did not subscribe to their pro- of the cinema he has frequently brought to the cess remains to disturb or irritate. grammatic approach, in which German post- work of his spiritually congenial friend Wim Nevertheless, the theater from which he grew war film history was understood largely as a Wenders, Fassbinder shared a talent that the and eventually escaped shaped the director’s continuation of UFA films (Universum-Film stage directors Stein, Neuenfels, and Bondy style, determined the stringency of his sto- AG, or UFA, was the principal film company in did not have at their disposal: an innate nar- rytelling and the visual concentration of his Germany before 1945) and as a product of the rative creativity. It is this that accounts for work. The stage as the scene of action, as the Adenauer-era restoration. Nor did he adopt Fassbinder’s unique status, the concentrated conceptual abstraction of a lived life, returns Alexander Kluge’s idea of a conscious return density of his filmic oeuvre, and it is this – de- even in apparently naturalistic movies, such to authentic, documentary-oriented contem- spite craftsmanly equivalents, for example in as THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS, ALI: porary film subjects. Fassbinder, as the young- the work of Volker Schlöndorff or Reinhard FEAR EATS THE SOUL, FEAR OF FEAR, or I est, had only recently become one of the West Hauff – that fundamentally sets him apart. He ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME, through a non- German filmmakers, and he was and always is also set apart from the storytellers of the naturalistic mode of speech. He signals dis- remained an outsider. His roots were in the New German Cinema insofar as this teller of tance, irritation with realistic events, which are theater rather than in documentary, industrial, his own tale was able to handle his own ma- – to a greater extent than stage scenery would art, or television filmmaking. In the theater, as terial and subject matter in an aesthetically permit – charged with additional narrative val- director, actor, and author, as spiritus rector, far-more-intimate and personal way, or, to ue through a metaphoric use of camera angles. he gathered around him a troupe. paraphrase Kleist, he was able to recognize This is why one finds more than one sees and In the course of his filmmaking career, Fass- the cinematographic potential of his stories, hears in Fassbinder’s “realistic works”; and binder’s involvement with the theater ended “formulating his ideas while he was talking”; in this is what distinguishes his films from the – definitely by 1974-75, when he foundered short, he did not think of storytelling in film as numerous “realistic” movies about the work- with the management of the TAT (Theater am adapting literature to the medium of vision and ers’ world, by which a part of the New German Turm) in Frankfurt, which he had tried to de- sound but was able to think in cinematograph- Cinema turned its attention, polemically and velop into a base for parallel film production. ic terms from the start. functionally, to the everyday lives of the work- He nevertheless succeeded where comparable This genuine filmic creativity comprehends ing-class petit bourgeoisie. movie talents, like Peter Stein and Luc Bondy, the “straightaway” of Raoul Walsh and Michael had failed, in finding the royal road to devel- Curtiz in the same sovereign manner as the oping his artistic potential in film. The theater lighting direction of Josef von Sternberg, the Wolfram Schütte of Stein, Bondy, and Hans Neuenfels repeat- color dramaturgy of Douglas Sirk, and Joseph edly cast envious glances toward the cinema, L. Mankiewicz’s complex narrative strategies Source: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation Fassbinder Source: Rainer Werner 17 Selected Filmography (Director)

1982 QUERELLE – EIN PAKT MIT DEM TEUFEL 1982 DIE SEHNSUCHT DER VERONIKA VOSS 1981 LOLA 1980 BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ 1980 LILI MARLEEN 1978 IN EINEM JAHR MIT 13 MONDEN 1978 DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN 1976 SATANSBRATEN 1974 FONTANE EFFI BRIEST HIS 1974 MARTHA 1973 ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF 1973 WELT AM DRAHT 1971 HÄNDLER DER VIER JAHRESZEITEN 1970 WHITY WORKS 1969 LIEBE IST KÄLTER ALS DER TOD

Selected Theatre Plays Selected Filmography (Actor)

1975 DER MÜLL, DIE STADT UND DER TOD 1982 KAMIKAZE 1989 von Wolf Gremm 1971 BREMER FREIHEIT 1974 FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT von Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1970 DAS BRENNENDE DORF 1973 ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF von Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1969 DAS KAFFEEHAUS 1970 MATHIAS KNEIßL von Reinhard Hauff 1966 TROPFEN AUF HEIßE STEINE 1970 BAAL von Volker Schlöndorff 1965 NUR EINE SCHEIBE BROT 1967 TONYS FREUNDE Von Paul Vasil

18 Picture Tree International

Picture Tree International (PTI) is an energetic PTI’s line-up of up to 15 films a year is de- and fast-growing world sales company with its signed to ensure the right mix of arthouse and headquarters in Berlin. The core business is crossover productions to fully maximize the worldwide licensing across all platforms, with revenue potential of each film. Picture Tree In- the company maintaining a presence at all ternational was founded in December 2012 by the major film and television markets. Along- Andreas Rothbauer and has been run jointly side licensing, PTI is also able to act as your by his partner and Co-Managing Director Yuan German co-producer and local distributor via Rothbauer since 2017. a fully integrated business model that offers producers individual sales and financing strat- egies in a results-driven and transparent part- nership, something essential in today’s ever changing audio-visual industry landscape. Contact

Picture Tree International GmbH Husemannstr. 7 10435 Berlin Germany WORLD Phone: +49 (0) 30 4208 248 - 0 Email: [email protected] SALES www.picturetree-international.com

19 PICTURE TREE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS A BAVARIA FILMPRODUKTION PRODUCTION IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH X-FILME CREATIVE POOL WDR BR ARTE STARRING OLIVER MASUCCI HARY PRINZ KATJA RIEMANN JOCHEN SCHROPP ERDAL YILDIZ FRIDA-LOVISA HAMANN DÉSIRÉE NICK ANDRÉ HENNICKE AND EVA MATTES AND ALEXANDER SCHEER CINEMATOGRAPHY BY CARL-FRIEDRICH KOSCHNICK COSTUME DESIGN BY PERI DE BRAGANCA MAKE-UP BY URSULA RÖLING SOUND DESIGN BY ANDREAS WÖLKI EDITING BY HANSJÖRG WEISSBRAUCH MIX BY HUBERTUS RATH MUSIC BY MARTIN TODSHAROW WRITTEN BY KLAUS RICHTER EDITORIAL STAFF ANDREA HANKE (WDR) BARBARA BUHL (WDR) CORNELIA ACKERS (BR) CARLOS GERSTENHAUER (BR) ANDREAS SCHREITMÜLLER (ARTE) PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT ANDREAS HABERMAIER PRODUCED BY MARKUS ZIMMER STEFAN ARNDT UWE SCHOTT DIRECTED BY OSKAR ROEHLER

www.picturetree-international.com